Sooziebee Giveaway

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The lovely Sooziebee is having a giveaway and its a good one! If you win you can choose one of her gorgeous prints, which is easier said than done as they are all fab. (examples above)

Check out her blog for details. http://sooziebee-design.blogspot.com/

Take a break

On Saturday I was meant to be having a stall at Handmade Nation Nottingham, but unfortunately I had to pull out at the last minute, due to some personal stuff. It had been a very bad week. I was really gutted to miss the event as I had helped to organise it and it would have been so nice to be there and it sounded like it was going to be a great day.

But it was the right thing to do and hopefully there will be more. It did mean I found some time to do some sketch book work. It was so relaxing and having a creative moment just made me feel so much better and I do have lots of ideas I want to progress. But I think until things get better I need to put Petal Textiles on the back burner and just do craft as a way of relaxing. I am hoping this break won't be for too long as I was really starting to move things forward. But I think sometimes you need to know when you need to step back and put your energy into more important things and at the moment I'm finding it so hard to do both.

Venice

Last weekend we had a long weekend in Venice to celebrate my birthday and our 10th anniversary. We arrived to heavy snow! So much for spring time in Venice. We did manage an afternoon of looking about, but just ended up with very cold and wet feet and I can't say it was very pleasant.

So we were both very relieved to see sunshine and melting the snow the next day, and managed to have 4 days of sunshine and each day it got a little warmer. We did loads of walking, everything was so expensive at least walking was cheap! I got very inspired by gold mosaics and its been added to my list of crafts I would like to try, which is already very long. We had a lovely mooch round Peggy Guggenheim house and her fantastic collection and then did lots more walking.

And as I joint birthday and anniversary pressie my lovely fella brought me a gorgeous antique diamond ring that I have had my eyes on a while. Its so sparkly and pretty, I'm a very lucky lady.

Too much

Its been a very hectic couple of weeks, hence the lack of blogging. Last weekend we went to Venice for a long weekend to celebrate my birthday and our 10th anniversary of being together. I've got loads of wonderful things to share with you about Venice, but I just need to find some time to download and sort out my photo's. I've been working away some of this week, which is really bad timing and has not helped.

Also got some personal things going on which is meaning I'm not having any spare time and I am generally feeling very exhausted and emotional. So have not made anything for a few weeks now. I haven't even had time to do some relaxing knitting, which sounds so lovely right now.

And on top of all that its Handmade Nation Nottingham on Saturday. I have been helping to organise this, I'm really hoping its going to be a great event as several of us have put so much work into it. I'm also having a stall, but with so much going on I haven't had time to make anything new, which is a shame as I had loads of new ideas and things I wanted to try out. I'll be so glad when Saturday is out of the way. I'm hoping that things will then calm down and I can take a few deep breathes and re-group and maybe start doing some creative things again.

Anyway you can still buy tickets for the Handmade Nation screening - from the Nottingham Craft Mafia website or if you find yourself in Nottingham on Saturday pop along to the craft fair which is open from 11am - 9pm. It should be a great day.

Sniffles

I was hoping for a productive weekend, but on Friday I got the sniffles again, so it all went wrong from there. I am preparing for a craft fair on the 20th March and I had wanted to make lots of new things, especially as I have lots of ideas I want to try out.

I got a fair bit done whilst working in the Nottingham Craft Mafia shop on Saturday, it was a really quiet day, so was a good opportunity, but when a friend popped by and stayed for an hour or so, I must admit it was a nice distraction as I wasn't feeling too creative.

On Sunday the sniffles had turned into a streaming cold so I wasn't really feeling like doing to much. So rather than get all stressed (as this was my last day at home before the craft fair and therefore last full day to make any thing new), I decided to mark out the space I have on a floor and then see how much stuff I actually have and therefore if I need to panic.

I was actually really surprised by how much stock I had and how small the space I have is, both of which were good news. I still have a things things I need to finish and a couple of small bit I would like to make, but a couple of late nights should do it. So I'm feeling a bit more relaxed now. I just hope I get rid of this cold quickly as its another busy week.

Handmade Nation film night

Last night some of the stall holders from the Handmade Nation event I'm helping to organise got together to watch the film Handmade Nation as I don't think we will get time to watch it on the day.

It was great to watch it with a selection of crafty types, as everyone seemed really inspired at the end and we all seems to like different parts. I would certainly recommend watching it if your into craft and if your near Nottingham on the 20th March come along to our event at The Broadway.

Although it was inspiring and really exciting to hear about the very vibrant craft scene in America. I did come away feeling a bit... erm not really sure how to describe it, apart from 'ness' (sort of means low). I think it just made me think about how much I still need to develop, learn and improve in my own work and how that the craft scene in England has some exciting development ahead of it.

I think my mood really represents how I'm feeling at the moment rather than anything bigger. As actually if I think about how things have developed over the last couple of years, both in my own work and craft in general things have improved so much and its actually really exciting times. So I don't think I really have any reason to feel negative and I just need to find some energy to be excited and some time to be creative.