Long time no blog - Henlow's day at work, 2 cards, and 2 lovely meals.

Sooo much has been happening - I've just looked back over the photos from the last few weeks and there are so many photos to share with you I don't think I will be able to share them all together.

Henlow had a day at the office - he was helping my husband when he had to work from home the other weekend:

I have made a couple of cards for people:

This one is for our friend who goes clay pigeon shooting with my husband. I think the picture was rather appropriate and another one of our classic designs went down a treat

And this one was for my supervisor at work - she turned 40 and the team clubbed together to get her a few little presents and I volunteered to make her a card. I have to confess that the idea was borrowed slightly from a picture of another card that we found on the internet but I think it is quite effective. Fairly simple in it's design too all cut out on my Sizzix machine and stuck together.

I was also treated to a couple of lovely meals over the last couple of weeks. The first was for a kind of anniversary. We moved into our house last year on Valantines day - ok so my husband left me here alone that night and went out to a comedy show with his mate - so we sort of had our first proper night here together on February 15 last year. Being the soppy sod that he is - this year my husband decided that this should be something to celebrate and treated me. I came home to this lovely bunch of flowers:

My slippers were left by the front door when I walked in with a little note telling me to go upstairs - no not what you're thinking!!! Dirty minds! - so I went upstairs to a lovely bath run with bubbles in it and only candles all around the bathroom for light.

He had also cooked me a fantastic pie for our dinner. Check out the decoration!! A house, boy, girl (us) a bird (Baldrick our budgie) and a tortoise and the bottom (Henlow)

We had a lovely evening, I had my bath and then we sat down to our lovely romantic meal. I almost felt like we should dress up all smart for the occasion but still couldn't quite resist the urge to pull my PJs on after I got out of the bath. We even had champagne with our meal - in our dressing gowns - oh well if you can't do it in your own home then when can you?

The other meal wasn't quite so fancy but still just as exciting to me as the opportunity only arises once a year. PANCAKES!!!!!! My husband was away on a training course for work on pancake day so we thought we'd save the occasion for when we could truly enjoy it at the weekend. Sunday morning, we got up, went to the shops to buy the ingredients and then spent the rest of the morning making and eating pancakes. I seemed to get the naff job of mixing all of the batter up - we ended up needing two batches as we were using a huge pan and so there was only enough for three the first time. Second time around we may have managed to get one extra but it was close.

We had a whole array of fillings too - apple warmed through with a little calvados, a banana one, my husband went for a little lemon juice and I had a little bit of the different ones but mostly stuck to good old orange juice and sugar. The best meal of the year if you ask me. It is the only day when you had have desert pancakes for starter, main course and pudding and no-one can say anything about it.

There will be more to follow over the next few days - now I have got the internet back on my phone to be able to do this. I have another crafty creative box that I received last week and Sunday was the day for the second and final class of sweater club - so I can almost see the end now in the quest to make myself a sweater.

Now I'm off to nurse a poorly Henlow. Fingers crossed he will start to look a little better soon - we had to take him to the vets on Saturday as he's not been eating properly for the last week or so and has been wanting to do a lot of sleeping (I don't blame him but something's not right). He also looks like he has a little runny nose a little too. I almost cried when we had to take him to the vets - partly out of being terrified of all of the dogs that were around but mostly because I hate to see my little one poorly. He's on antibiotics now so I'm about to go and do battle with him to take them. Soooo tricky but fingers crossed we can get him to have them for this week and he starts to feel a little bit better soon too. I'm off to do battle now so see you all soon!

The craft swap goodies that I made

Hannah - if you don't want to know what I sent (and hopefully one day you will receive) then avert your eyes now!

I think I posted most of the photo's before of these in the middle of being made - I think I tried to take them at various points so that it was not too obvious what anything was. Here's the finished items:

I made one of the recipe books that I had done for my friends and family after the Bake Off that we did. I just took out all of the pictures of my friends as this might have been slightly strange for someone who doesn't know them to receive!

I crocheted a tortoise - I know that she didn't specifically say that she liked tortoises in the brief that I got before the swap but she did say that she loves animals and I love my Henlow so I thought she would still like it.

I knitted some snowmen and attached them to a ribbon - as this was supposed to reach Hannah way before Christmas then this wouldn't have been quite as weird as if it does arrive now!

As this was a craft swap on the theme of "Home" then I thought - what could possibly be any more homely than tea. I cross-stitched a tea pot and made this into a card to send with the gifts. I had thought of sending a mug and a couple of tea bags as the bought gift with the swap but decided that this would probably end up weighing too much to post. Hannah, when this does arrive (see the optimism!!!) I suggest you settle down with a nice cup of tea and beginning unwrapping everything.

My bought gift ended up being the little cross stitch kits on a  Christmassy theme. I thought that these should be little enough for her to attempt is she hasn't cross-stitched before and they're always really good and relatively simple ways of making nice home-made cards for people at Christmas. Hopefully she can have a go for next year.

Once I had everything finished I wrapped them all up in little parcels - you all know how much I love the aspect of un-wrapping presents almost as much as what you receive inside them.

Tissue paper has to be the most exciting way of protecting things on their journey.

Must be multi-coloured - card added on top

Sides of the box folded in - sorry it is an old paper box!

And finally the whole parcel was wrapped in paper for posting and the address added. I have a really horrible feeling that the choice of wrapping paper and the fact that it wasn't plain brown may have been the downfall in the delivery of the box :-( I received a parcel this way once - something that I had bought on eBay and wondered why not everyone used colourful paper when wrapping parcels and why most use brown. I might have found out the answer the hard way but I tried to make it exciting!

Hannah - if you have read this I hope it doesn't ruin the gifts too much for you. And I really really hope that you receive it soon.

Craft swap parcel arrived today!!!

This morning my husband got up and went out to work leaving me in bed. I was just settling in to a lovely lye in when I was awoken by what sounded like a parcel dropping through the door. In my sleepy state I didn't figure out straight away what this might be but after a few seconds I realised that this was probably my craft swap parcel arriving from the lovely Hannah.

I knew this would be arriving shortly as (funny story!) we had spoken about it being posted to me on Friday. The story goes like this - Hannah hasn't been feeling too well recently and during her recovery a few days ago she posted out two parcels to people. When one arrived with a lady called Rose, she got what sounded like a very giggly phone call. It went something along the lines of this parcel really isn't designed for me - these gifts really aren't designed for me at all and my name isn't Kate. Hannah had wrapped up both parcels at the same time and then sent the wrong ones to the wrong people. She had received my parcel on Thursday and when I returned home from work found the one for her on my doormat. This contained a lovely mini blanket with a cat on it but obviously wasn't designed for me. You can see the pictures of Hannah's blog if you click the link above.

On Friday we both went to our respective postal places and sent the parcels on the the correct people. And woohoo we're back to the beginning of this story and to me receiving my parcel.

It was very difficult to contain my excitement this morning long enough to take photos of the package as I opened it but I think I did pretty well - here goes:

 A lovely little card came inside the outer bag

 And the actual goodies were all wrapped in tissue paper

 Here's the note that she sent

 And the contents of the tissue paper

 These were some really pretty flowers - I'm not entirely sure what I will do with these yet - I have just spoken to Hannah and she said that she had planned to crochet a garland to connect them but didn't quite manage so this is an idea I might do and then hang them in my crafty room once it is all decorate next weekend.

 These are some little squares of fabric in a kind of vintage theme maybe to go with the old singer sewing machine I spoke about here. I love how thoughtful everything that I have received has been.

 I think this has to be my absolute favourite - a tiny little quilt, similar size to a cushion with a tortoise on - this is absolutely amazing. I can't believe how much thought and effort has gone into this - it's absolutely perfect

 And finally, last but by no means least - a cushion cover - amazing with all of the different materials in it (I think my favourite is the one with blue and green splodges on it - the same as she used for the tortoise above. I can't wait to get a cushion to fill this and put it out. I can't decide whether it will go best in the study when it is all decorated so that I can lean on it in my new office chair or it might take pride of place on our spare bed when we have visitors over. We have a black and red quilt cover for in there that we use sometimes so it would go really well when we have that on.

 And finally for the big ta-dah! Here's everything that I received. I can't believe it - I'm so excited!!!!!

Watch out for the next post coming very soon - I'm going to put up all of the photos of everything that I made for my swap gifts - Hannah still hasn't received them or a letter from Royal Mail but hopefully the parcel will appear soon.