More sneak peaks of new products

Coming soon to folksy and etsy...

Birthday day out

For my birthday, back in the Easter Holidays, Amelia and I took a little jaunt to the Lake District to catch the World of Wool exhibition at Rheged.  Rheged is a strange beast, kind of a glorified service station, with shops selling lovely little things by local and national designer/maker types (including the lovely Julia Smith Ceramics), a soft play centre and outdoor play area (a lovely surprise on arrival) and a few different coffee bars.  There's some office/meeting space and also a huge exhibition space on the top floor.  It looks a bit hobbity from the outside, too.

As well as having been keen on visiting the exhibition for a while, we also had some friends in town from overseas with their new baby, so it was definitely worth the trip!

After an hour or so in the soft play, making friends and riding foam horses, Amelia seemed to enjoy it too. 

Amelia doing incredibly well not to touch the lovely tactile display

I didn't get to take photos of everything, what with the child wrangling and the don't touch policy, but my favourite part of the exhibition were the handmade houses with stories of the inhabitants.  I love the idea of building a whole new world out of just needles, yarn and imagination.  There's a pun about spinning a good yarn in there, I'm sure, but let's just gloss over that...

Some well known names like Emily Peacock and Donna Wilson were on display, alongside more local and less well known exhibitors.  Sadly the exhibition finished last week so I can't tell you all to go and see it.  Unfortunately, since I got my iPad and traded in my laptop, blogging has become more of a challenge, so hopefully someone can improve the blogger app soon and I'll get back to more frequent blogging. 

I loved the handmade brochure and had to buy one as a souvenir - it is even handbound with local wool.  Just perfect!

New products... sneak peek

patchwork kindle cover

heart bookmarks in a range of bold new brights

mini kraft tags with bakers twine

What's new with you this spring?

Drool...

How summery and perfect is this? Found at the knit kid on Etsy

Live day in the life...

I've lost track of where we're up to with Day in the Life and have a busy day ahead of me so I thought I'd have a go at blogging what I'm doing as I go. Today is my last child free day before I return to full time work, so I absolutely have to maximise it! Check back and keep me company...First of all, I've been having a coffee and reading a free magazine, where I spotted my former colleague, Rachna, and her amazing Indian food. If you haven't already sampled her Bombay street food at various farmers' markets around the central belt, I can totally recommend it.

Next on the list is to scrapbook all my wedding memorabilia, so I can go from this...

To this...

Time for another cuppa first... Which reminds me, I have a contest to enter over at www.blu-shed.blogspot.com

For the first time in about three years, I'm completely out of glue tape, so my scrapbooking efforts are on hold for the time being. And nothing goes back in the box the same way as before, so I think we could chalk this one up as a deferred success! It was lovely to look through my old wedding cards, though!

I've tidied the living room and kitchen and put the dishwasher on, next up is sorting through a container of supplies...

And look what just arrived! At long last! I'll update the shop shortly: www.girlindustries.etsy.com What an apt photo of Laurafallulah for today, it's lovely outside.

Lunchtime!

The actual petrol station where I had my first ever job was on the lunchtime news. Exciting! This is what mobile blogging was invented for, clearly.

So I've spent the afternoon at the post office, in the supermarket and browsing Red magazine. There's a lemon and chorizo chicken roasting in the oven, along with patatas bravas and a herby salad ready to assemble.

After collecting the baby and having some play time, the little one went to bed and I had dinner with my husband. I had a look at a couple of new treasuries on etsy featuring my work, then watched an episode of The Wire (we're late to the party, halfway through season 3). Today wasn't the most productive, but I had a very relaxing day, and there's always tomorrow...

More clearance items in the shop...

I'm seriously getting down to tidying and reorganising my craft space this week and came across a stash of these moo business card-sized envelopes that I made quite a while ago.  In the interest of making way for new stock, I'm discontinuing them at a one time special price over at my etsy store.

The print is so lovely and bright for spring - they are also ideal for a neatly folded note (the written or money kind) as an Easter gift if (like me) you're not that keen on chocolate!

The end of the line for train tickets

Grab some of my train ticket gift tags while you can! The UK government is talking about doing away with printed tickets and introducing smart cards for the entire network, just like the Oyster card system in London. Read more about it over on the BBC news website.

I only became a car driver at the age of 29, having always lived in major cities with excellent transport systems I never really saw the need to drive. As I got older, I decided it was another life skill that I really should get under my belt before they put the price of the test up any higher and what really spurred me on was a plan for a road trip across Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana for my 30th birthday.

Before that, I used public tranport all over the world on my travels and one of the things I love to collect are used tickets. I love the variation in design and format from country to country, and I hate that in some places (including the UK now) you don't get to keep your ticket any more. The traditional design of British train tickets harks all the way back to the days of British Rail and before, and everyone knows that Brief Encounter is the most romantic film of all time, even those of us who, ahem, haven't seen it.  Well, I'm more of a Taking of Pelham 123 kind of a girl, myself.  Yes, even the remake (which is surprisingly good, honest).  Oh and Money Train, which reminds me that I have a very small stash of old subway tokens somewhere, from my first trip to New York in the 80s when, amongst other nicer things happening, I got caught up in this at the station underneath Macy's.  Of course I have a PILE of more recent metrocards hiding away waiting to be scrapbooked, too.

But anyway, back to the train ticket gift tags.  I have quite the stash of tickets to turn into tags still available, but even before they are withdrawn, they are getting harder and harder to come by.  The advent of ticket collecting machines and over-zealous conductors who deface the tickets to prevent fraud - I haven't seen a date stamp or ticket punch in a long time, now it's just biro and bad handwriting - mean that I get fewer and fewer tickets in reuseable condition, despite my long commute by train most working days.  I have around 100 in stock and ready to post, so large orders can be accomodated.  I'd love to see my tags used as place markers at a trainspotting couple's wedding, or a special dinner for a steam buff.  I first started making the tags because I love foreign travel and travel tickets of all kinds, and there has to be at least one other person in some other part of the world that feels the same way!