Little Ethel competition

I am officially a BAD BLOGGER . To make ammends to you all I am running a competition , a Little Ethel competition. Little Ethel is my latest creation and she is receiving a really warm welcome in the online world and in the real world .
Ethel will be for sale soon in my Folksy and Etsy shops . To enter the competition pop over to my facebook page and take a look at the full range of Ethels and then answer these two questions   1. which is your favourite ethel ?   2. Can you give me an idea for a new ethel .? The prize will be an ethel of your choice . Please leave your answers here on this post and an email address to contact you on .
You will have additional chances if you 'like' my facebook page, follow me on twitter and if you share news of this competition on your blog or on twitter .The closing date will be Sunday 20th of may at 8pm .

I have also discovered and love love love Instagram - if you can pop in and say hello I am dottydaisies.

A little background to Ethel - she is a little girl who has 2 main forms of dress - her pants or dress up clothes .Above is a picture of Ethel in her pants and then just a few of her costumes . Ethel is needlefelted and each one takes about 4-5 hours to make.

I hope you like Ethel and I will return very soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Just quickly popping in to tell you about a fantastical giveaway at Her library adventures where you can win a naughty shorts dress , I have 2 and they are beautiful , dont miss this opportunity !!! xxxx

I am sitting here whilst the 3 eldest watch Fantastic Mr fox ( I only have to listen - Mr Clooneys voice is enough for me thank you very much ) , 2 are feeling rather poorly tucked under a blanket ,the other tucking into sweets . Arthur on the other hand is stomping round the living room in his first pair of shoes leaving a trail of destruction behind him wherever he goes .

Another quiet week, weekend ,day with a few good finds in my good old charity shops this week , I have my favourite ones you know and I have come to the conclusion that the grottier looking the shop , the further away from the highstreet , and dare I say the stronger fousty aroma it has - the more i get excited and the more I find .

I love Mary Portas but she has a lot to answer for when it comes to smartening up the charity shops - personally I don't like the ones where everything is colour coordinated , they sell their own brand new goods and you end up paying £ 5.00 for a top from New Look that probably only cost £6.00 brand new.

Don't get me wrong I know these shops have to make money for their causes and I support that but some have most definitely got too expensive .

  Then we have the 'vintage 'rails where if its an item that somebody over the age of 65 would wear then its vintage and 3 times the price of everything else in the shop ....grrrr. So to conclude give me a  grotty, in the middle of nowhere , fousty shop and I am happy lady !

A few of my recent finds , my favourite being the floral chopping board which i hasten to add will not be used as a chopping board in this establishment , no sireee !!!

When i go out rummaging i do often have one book mad companion who will bury herself in the book area of the shop for as much time as i will give her - pound coin firmly clutched in her hand . On this occasion we went to my very favourite shop I made my way over to the fabric and off she went to the books however as we went to go our separate ways both our eyes widend a little when we saw this beauty ,

my young lady because she is positively horse mad and I because I just love the painting and the doe eyed look of this pretty pony and all for the princely sum of £3.00.

I also had this beautiful blooming beauty

I did paint the frame white and it makes me just a little happy .

On a non thrifty note ,

A ceramic owl from South of France on my mantlepiece

a pressie for the OH made from very old stamps ( not by me). On a recent getaway to Brighton - the only city I would ever want to live in , in a little street market there was a lady selling 1000s of old stamps , we spent an age just looking at all the different letters words, fonts . the OH was quite taken with them , so when I saw this in the Made By Hand show I knew I had to get it .

Finally a little make that I made for my girls bedroom

Hope you all have a lovely week xxxxx

A weekend of mess and sun .

Work on project Little Ethel continues and I am determined to wait until it is all finished until I reveal . It has been a relatively quiet weekend here , today has not been the best day children painting by 9am then playdough = one trashed kitchen = one exasperated  mother .

I did appreciate the cold crisp weather we had and we did escape to the park,

Time for scooting , time for swinging and sliding and time for doggy rolling in fox doodoo !!! I had already decided to avoid our usual woodland walk as I couldnt face washing off another load of mud so instead I end up washing off stinky stuff - I give up !!!  The eldest insisited on scooting and holding the dog so she could be towed but this inevitably ended up with her flat on her face - no injuries thankfully .

No recent makes to show you yet but I do have a little collage of some from the past year while I have been away from blogland

Hope you like them .

The christmas decorations may be put away finally but I thought I would give you a little peek at  my favourite christmas pressies

The book at the top is Dottie Angel , she can be found and the pictures are taken from here , the book , the blog are just beautiful , very inspiring , very entertaining - quite peachy !

The birdie brooch is from here, bought when we went here .

The lovely necklace can be found here.

The Mary Berry book can be found here

Heres to a good week for us all xxxx

Show and tell.

Not much to tell here, the weather is yuk , children back in school, I have a slow cooker (yay) and I am cream crackered because I keep staying up stupidly late to complete the next part of a little craft project that has embedded itself in my already cluttered mind and refuses to toddle off until I have done it all , resistance is futile I have to do it .
 I am hoping it will be done in about a fortnight  , its called Little Ethel  and its needlefelted and thats all the info I can give you folks .

As the title suggests I thought I may do some showing , I have an evergrowing pile of vintagey fabrics which I love but am doing nothing with at the moment , I am however learning to use the sewing machine as i would like to turn them into cushions,  patchwork thingies and bags ,but I have sneaky feeling that will be a long way off !

 This was given to me by a very kind crafty friend , I would love to turn it into a top / tunic kind of thing .

 A pair of curtains that cost 50p.

 Beautifully faded , I love this print , my eldest has the duvet cover on her bed .

 My absolute favourite , and I really want to turn it into a dress , I recently very wisely invested, my pennies in a vintage fabric dress from this clever  Miss , you can read more about her  here . Will post a piccie of said dress soon - i love it !!!! Have lots more fabric to show another day .

Two new pretties ( well I think so , hubby may beg to differ !) in the home ,

Below is an isak tea towel that is way too lovely to get soggy so  framed it in an old flea market find and I am delightedly happy with the result . I did request approval form my 2 eldest to put this up in my living room - would they be embarrassed when their friends came over, with ladies boobies on view , but they thought the whole thing hilarious as do many who frequent my home - cannot think why ?

Am off now to put away the 2 boxes of christmas decs that have been sat in my bathroom for the last 10 days accumalating odd bathroom type items within them ie empty loo rolls , toothpaste tubes - not really what i want haging on my tree in the next festive season .

Wind in our hair and sand in our eyes .

I thought I may try and get in a sneaky post while all is quiet here . We are all recovering from a trip to the beach , to give the dog a good run and try out the christmas scooters, George was really looking forward to scooting down the ramps super fast , but his plans were scuppered.....

On your average day this mound of sand is a sloping concrete path.

The wind was whipping around our faces , runny noses, sand and hair in our eyes , poor Arthur was so wrapped up he couldn't even lift his arms up, but somehow I was still glad to be there ,in the fresh air feeling very alive, the cobwebs well and truly blown away .

Christmas is packed away, we had a very manic one here 4 very close family members have birthdays on the 19th , 23rd, 24th and 28th - 2 of them are my children and one my dad who was 70 this year so a 2 night trip away was also thrown into the mix arriving home on the 23rd !!!!

We had a lovely time at Bluestone , in Pembroke which incorporated a trip to Elf school - (oh how i laughed at hubby with his rosy elf cheeks having to do an elf dance !!!)  .

Time now though to look forward to the year ahead and I am prepared in one very minor way

I have my new notebook ready for that moment of silence , that time when I can think reflect and start making my notes and lists . May 2012 be a good one for all of us !!!! I will leave you with 2 cutie pics - I made them both .

A custom made meer cat - my first attempt .

My now 1 year old having a late night cwtch .

A new look blog , a new year , a few quiet promises to myself - watch this space , i will be back once i have finished playing with pretty pictures and a few ideas . Cannot be wait to be back in Blogland .
     

                      sarah xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx