This week's smiles....week317

What a lovely week it's been here at Sewing by Annie's.  It's been a week filled with smiles and proud moments so I'm here to share them with you.  I'm hoping that my smiles encourage you all to look at the life around you and that you will spend a little time focusing on the good things and you will share them with us too by linking them up at the bottom of the page....everyone is very welcome.

It was our 37th Wedding Anniversary on 17th.  We got married on my Dad's birthday and this year he would have celebrated his 99th birthday.  Sadly I lost him when I was only 31 but I am blessed to say that for those 31 years I had something many folk never have.  We had a very special relationship and for that I'm eternally thankful.  This July my darling hubby will be retiring so it plans to be the start of another exciting stage in our lives [if only I could retire too eh?].

It's the Easter holidays for our Grandchildren and, as you can see the twins have been enjoying some creative time....I do love that all 6 of our grandchildren are creative :-)

On Tuesday night we went to Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury to watch Lexi perform in the Wizard of Oz.  She goes to a Get Your Wigle On drama group and this was her first stage performance.  She was one of the group of Munchkins and we were so proud to see her up there on stage singing and dancing.....sadly photos were not allowed.  :-)

Steve has been to another days football training and yet again he was awarded player of the day.....he really loves his football and they can obviously can see he has a talent..... we have so much to be proud of. :-)

Amy and Dave have just had a campervan fitted out just how they want to suit a family of 5 [and two dogs] and Wednesday night they brought it to show us.  It's just perfect and I'm sure they will have many happy days spent using it....I'm so thrilled for them. :-)

Finally, I saw this on Pinterest and thought I'd share it with you....I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels like this at times.

Have a great week folks and please share your smiles if you can.

Hugs,

Annie x

This week's smiles....week 202

Another week has flown past and I'm grabbing a few minutes from a very busy day to type this post up so I will say thank you to all who joined in last week and just quickly share a few smiles and add Mr Linky at the bottom on the page.....I've had a really lovely day catching up with my crafty buddy Jacquie today and we were joined by that big sister of mine this afternoon [Tues] so will make no apologies for being brief.....life is to be enjoyed and trust me when I say we have done a lot of smiling to all be together today.

For Christmas we bought the five older grandchildren something creative/crafty each and here are the pics to show you that they all enjoyed their gifts....and seeing them all using their time well never fails to make me smile....

Phoebe had a sewing kit to make little hearts in fabrics and decorate them with bows and buttons and you can see she is proudly showing off the first she completed.

Lulu had some plastic canvasses to do cross stitch on and here she is proudly showing the picture she made with the first one.

Steve and Sam had kits about dinosaurs and both really enjoyed excavating their own dinosaurs from a block of plaster

Lexi had a craft kit with adult colouring books and art materials in it and she has had lots of fun using it all....children's colouring books are just too easy for this one, she loves really complex pages when it comes to colouring.

As you can imagine I get a lot of pleasure seeing my grandchildren being creative and I hope they have made you smile too.  Thanks for calling by.  Please leave me a little message so I know you've called in and if you can then please link up your own smiles below.

Hugs,

Annie x

This week's smiles.....week 157

Well, here we are at yet another Friday....where does the time go?  This is the time of the week that I like to look back to see what has made me smile over the last week and, as always, there has been many reasons to smile for me.

First I would like to say a big thank you to all who joined in last week...there seemed to be many chuckles around and my featured post was Elizabeth's share of the Simon's cat video....these always make me chuckle so thank you Elizabeth for sharing this one with us.

I thought you'd like a couple of snaps of what I've been helping the twins to do this week....I love to see them crafting and they seem to really enjoy making things now.....

Just look at the concentration while Lexi puts all her tiny pieces on her mosaic to make her little dog....she used a pair of plastic tweezers to put most of them in place and amazed us all at her dexterity....not bad for a 4 year old eh?

Sam is left handed and struggled to make his car using the tweezers but he put every tiny little piece in with his fingers.  :-)

For those that don't know what they are....once all the pieces are in place they are then covered with baking parchment and ironed with a hot iron to melt the plastic beads together to make a mat.

I thought this pic might also make you smile.  Shell asked me to adapt her elf ready for next Christmas. and as you can see he now has a girlfriend. I inserted pipe cleaners into their arms and legs to make them more poseable and inserted strong magnets into their hands so they can hold on to anything metal and hold hands.  I sent this pic to Shell with the caption.....'Don't worry I will save you....I wont let Annie operate'  :-)

I hope I've made you smile today and you will now link to your own smiles below.....Please cos it really does make the world a happier place for us all.

Hugs,

Annie x

Friday's smile....

I hope this post makes you smile as much as it did me....

My eldest granddaughter [age 3] and her little sister [age 2 years in just a few days] have been very busy crafting.....It's in their genes :-) :-)   They like the little craft kits that you can get from most shops these days and their Mummy likes to send me pics of what they have been up to.

 

Painting and printing

Working on a masterpiece on their easel while little brother Steve looks on.....do you think he is their art critic?

Some Easter cards they have made.

Wooden spoon fairies in the making.

Amy never fails to amaze me because she often bakes with the girls too during the day and while she is doing that she is also caring for little Steve, cooking, cleaning and running the office side of their Banner business - taking orders, sending bills and even sometimes doing the artwork too etc etc ......I wonder where she gets her ability to 'plate spin' from?  :-) :-) :-)

I hope you have enjoyed my little show and tell today and it has made you smile too.  Hope you have a great weekend.

Hugs,

Annie x

What sort of crafter are you?...

I think I am a bit of a butterfly. I flit from one craft to another and although I like to master each craft I try I do tend to move on to another one fairly quickly. My list includes [but I'm sure there are many more!]...

1. Bobbin lace making...I did this when my two girls were babies [No idea how I found the time]
2. Glass painting...mostly for cards
3. Stamping...Have read the book and got the T shirt but not something I am hooked on really so thinking of selling off a lot of my stamps if anyone is interested.
4. Knitting.....always have some on the go for relaxation
5. Crochet...used to crochet for a shop when I was nursing many years ago
6. Decoupage....very pretty when done but doesn't grow fast enough for me
7. Machine embroidery...use this lots when I'm card making
8. Cross stitch...used to do loads especially when my children were little and at 10 our eldest daughter was commissioned to do some to go to America [It featured in a x stitch mag too].
9. Hand embroidery...have lots of pics I've made over the years [some still not been framed!].
10. Quilling....enjoyed fiddling with this but never really did a lot with it.
11. Applique...Love the effects of this on all sorts and often find a use for this craft.
12. Puppet making....I design and make lots of different ones.
13. Patchwork....too time consuming for doing a lot
14. Macrame...I'm sure we all had a go at this
    
15. Dumfing...hand and machine...this is my latest new craft and although I've had a little break from it lately cos things have been so hectic here I love it and will find new and interesting uses for this craft.
    
16. Oh and of course sewing, tailoring and all sorts of alterations.....but of course that's the job I do every day :-)

When I stop to think of it the list is pretty endless and I have spent so very many happy hours crafting in all sorts of mediums. I'm sure many of you are like me and get lots of pleasure from their crafts but how about writing your list so we can all see what crafts you've tried?

Oh how quick the weeks are going!.....

Yes it's THAT day again. WOYWW. My week has been a really varied one. Everything from crafting, embellishing, knitting to of course sewing sewing and yet more sewing.


Monday was Fun Day but Tuesday evening was also a fun time for crafting too. My table has been full of wools, threads and fabrics and .......






I have even found time for cutting out a top for myself.








Yesterday brought yet more new customers to my door and a steady flow of regulars too so my rail is now full.....





3 skirts to take in and shorten
2 pair trousers to take in
3 pair trousers to shorten
pair trousers to patch and darn damage done my a moth
and even a shower curtain to shorten













I thought you might also like to see how far my embellished picture has gone. It will be an ongoing project and I plan to put poppies on it as they are one of my favourite flowers. So far I have embellished the background with wool rovings and used textured threads for stems in the foreground. Lots to do yet of course but I am really loving 'painting' with materials.


Hope you all have a fab, fun day and enjoy your blog hopping Wednesday. A x