I'm here today to wish you all a very happy Christmas and here's hoping 2023 is a good one for us all.
I'm sure many of you will remember the photo Shell takes every year of the twins in the stockings I made them. She has made a collage of every one and it hangs up their stairs.
This is the latest photo....from their very first photo when they fitted inside almost completly to now when their feet barely fit in....they sure have grown :-)
Amy, Dave and family enjoyed their anual visit to see Father Christmas and, as you can see, Amy loves to take her chance to sit on his knee [embarass the kids]....I wonder who she takes after? ;-)
I do love how they maintain the magic of Christmas.
Here's just a few funnies to keep you smiling over the festive weekend.
I hope you all enjoy the celebrations and stay well and happy. See you on the other side.
To those that haven't recieved Christmas cards from me that normally do I'd like to say Happy Christmas to you all....the post seems to have lost a few....annoying but there's little I can do about it.
I have a few things to share with you...
I've made another School Memory bear...and the best bit is this was the secondary school I went to....the uniform was bottle green back then [including bottle green fleecy knickers!!]. 7 years in those gives you a clue why I dont like green :-)
I've also made two Memory Dogs in memory of a much loved 8 year old black labrador [hence the black ribbons around their necks]. The ears and tails are made out of parts of the dog's favourite toys....quite unique but just how my customer wanted them and we are hoping they bring comfort to the lady's autistic son.
My best friend who I have known for over 60 years [we started school together], has just had her first tiny Grandson....tiny because he was born at 32 weeks weighing just 2lb 4 ozs. I rooted out the prem baby knitting patterns I used when the twins were born and knitted a tiny cardigan.
I then made him a patchwork quilt....I love how it turned out and hope they will too....the little man is doing well so far and hopefully he will continue to do so.
I had a very special crafty time with the twins on Saturday. We made these lovely Christmas trees....they were very proud of their finished results.
I have more cut out ready for Phoebe, Lulu and Stephen to make later in the week...I love having creative time with my grandchildren....and it pays off because Phoebe and Lulu made their Christmas cards this year.
I hope you have enjoyed your visit this week and you all have a wonderful Christmas. I will do my best to visit all who call in here when I get a minute.
Here we are at another Friday's catch up of the smiles from the week.....and there's been lots thankfully. A lot of then I am unable to share the photos with you because they are school photos and are not allowed to be put on but trust me when I say lots of memories have been made....
We went to watch Theo's first Christmas play
We went to watch Stephen's final Christmas play at his junior school
We have seen videos of Lulu singing in her school choir...sadly the Christmas carols in the church had to be cancelled.
We have watched the videos of Lexi dancing
I can share a few of the photos we took in Sunday when some of our family came to ours to exchange gifts and to decorate our Christmas tree...
I love it when we can have family times.
Shell sent me this gorgeous photo of their two dogs snuggled up together...Reggie has grown so much now.
Of course we can't have a Friday without a few chuckles....
There's rather a lot this week but I decided we could never have too many smiles to have collaged them all for you. [Some are a bit cheeky so I hope none offend].
I hope all your Christmas preparations are going well and you're all keeping warm and cosy.
Here we are at another round up of smiles for the week. It really does me good to focus on the smiles I've had during the week...it's like a therapy when life gets difficult. I know there are many who like to read the happy posts and several like to share their smiles so why not join in too? Everyone is welcome. Lets all do our bit to make the world a happier place to be.
The garden outside is all looking rather shabby now. The frost has taken the flowers and many of the leaves have now dropped so I thought I'd share my orchids with you. The top two little pots have new little plants growing that I took off the pink one....and I've already given two away. On the left you can see I have another flower shoot growing and the other plants keep giving with gorgeous blooms....I love them.
I've been given these gorgeous flowers this week and they are just too pretty to not share them with you all....hope they make you smile too.
Theo enjoyed a trip with his mum and dad to fetch their Christmas tree this week. They went to a local place that allows you to choose your tree and actually cut it down yourself...and what fun they had.
I really love the photo of Mark lifting him up to put the star on the top of their tree and the gorgeous family photo of them all together.
I hope you have all enjoyed my smiles and will leave me a little comment so I know you've called in and will then link your smiles below.
Phew these week's sure are flying by aren't they? It's been a hectic week here but I've had lots to smile about.....
Little Theo went with his Mummy, Daddy and friends to Thomas Land at the weekend...it's such an exciting time of the year isn't it?
Our baking session with grandad on Tuesday we made Gingerbread biscuits and decorated them....very yummy they were too.
Lexi won an award for being a good team player at her dance awards at the weekend....just wish I could do the splits like that....don't you?
Sam had to go for a photo shoot by the side of the new road sign he designed for the new estate they now live on....the photos are for the local paper so he was very pleased with himself.
Proud Nanny moments.
Amy's girls have been trying on their outfits for their Christmas play.
It's Phoebe's last one this year before she moves up to big school and she makes the perfect angel.
Lulu is a wise [wo]man....they have to be politically correct these days and I have a feeling if they had been 3 wise women the gifts might have been rather more practical.
Steve is a narrator so just has to wear his Christmas jumper :-)
We had a trip out in the motor home at the weekend to Colwyn Bay and it wasn't until I got in the van that my darling hubby turned the lights on inside that he had secretly put up to make me smile....it worked too :-)
Those are my smiles for this week so please leave me a little comment and link up to your smiles at the bottom.
Here we are catching up with the weekly smiles.....I will be absent this Friday so have posted automatically so everyone can link up but I may not be able to leave you comments for a few days....but I will be reading your posts on my Ipad so please link them up below.
My smiles are all Christmas related this week. My family have been enjoying early celebrations.....
Amy and gang enjoyed a weekend in Whitby with friends and these 5 are just the best of friends....it's so lovely to see them enjoying time together.....and I really love their matching onsies.
Here they are playing 'pass the snowball'.....don't ask. I really don't know how to play it but I know they enjoyed it.
Here they are colouring in the Christmas table cloth....what fun :-)
Michelle and gang moved houses last weekend and even in all the chaos Bob and Betty elves turned up on Dec 1st and this year they have brought their cousin Buster with them for fun and games each night.
When you're a teacher you just have to go that extra mile for the kids in your class and this is Shell playing Rudolph one of the days this week. What fun eh?
That's my smiles for this week. I will catch up with your all as soon as I can this week.
It's a quick catch up of my week's smiles as life here is pretty manic for me but I do my best to not let my regulars down.....and to those regulars I thank you loads for keeping up with the smiles. Our numbers have dropped off since I started but I still like to keep things going for those that like to join in.
My smiles for this week have been many....mostly because my hip is now much improved and I'm able to cope with the flood of customers bringing me sewing jobs this week......and as you all know, I like to be kept busy :-)
My two daughters sent me photos within half an hour of each other of
the, now much used, advent calendars I made for the grandchildren as
each one arrived. They come out every year and are filled with treats
and every year it makes me smile just knowing how much they are enjoyed.
Michelle has made the most gorgeous Nativity scene for the twins using little wooden peg dolls. Isn't it lovely? All those hours spent with her as a child really is paying off. It's so lovely watching my children doing such a lovely job with their own children.
Amy and her friend enjoyed an evening making Christmas garlands....and what a lovely job she did too. The creative genes appear to have been passed on to all my children.
We have put up our Christmas tree ready for our little Christmas elves to come and decorate it. It's a tradition that we do every year ....and I'm not sure who looks forward to an evening of tree decorating at Nanny Annie's most.....I know I do.
As you can see Milly had to get in on the picture and she looks so cute but......
......here she is sitting in her naughty corner avoiding eye contact because if you look closely at the photo she had just chewed the trunk off her new elephant toy....that's it just in front of her on the floor!! I will add that she has since chewed a leg off too and managed to chew a hole in the body of it and got all the stuffing out!!
And no I haven't been able to repair it so the new extra tough elephant toy was put in the bin....obviously it wasn't tough enough for our little terror.....but she still makes me smile.
That's all from me for this week. Please leave me a little message so I know you've called in and add your own smiles to Mr Linky below.
This is where the fun starts. Last week there seemed to be so many of you making Christmas cards that I thought I'd best get started so after hours of searching on Pinterest for inspiration and finding nothing that stirred my creativity......
I filled my desk with Christmas fabrics.....but couldn't get inspired to make cards out of any of it so.....
I found a roll of gorgeous gold voile that a good friend [you know who you are....thank you] gave me a while back and using festive ribbons I made several 'masterboards'.
Now that's inspiring isn't it?
I chopped them up and......
Hey presto I've now made my first 40 Christmas cards!!
The Christmas fabrics were still 'calling' me so I searched Pinterest again and I found an idea to make some stars for my up and coming Christmas fayre.
Each one needs four 3"x12" pieces of fabric that you fold into four length ways to enclose the raw edges then with lots of clever folding origami style it makes a star with no sewing required.....just a lot of patience!!
I think they are Scandinavian in origin and I rather like them. What do you think?
That's all from me for this morning. I hope you like my start to Christmas crafting and will leave me a little message so I know you've called in then as soon as I'm able I will do my best to pay you a return visit. Have a fun week folks.
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.
Here we are at another catch up of our smiles from the last week. Many thanks to all who joined in again last week. I do so enjoy seeing all that makes you smile each week so please keep up the good work.
I am featuring Angela's post over at Felix the Crafty Cat from last week with her fab photos of Santa with real reindeers.....aren't they gorgeous? Thanks for sharing Angela.
I am sharing Bob the Elf's adventures from this last week. He's such a little monkey. He was caught by Buzz Lightyear and Woody trying to take the baubles off the Christmas tree and had to be restrained. He had been over here to Sewing by Annie's one night and taken my Mitzy Monkey with him and the two of them were found on a festive swing the next morning. He's been found covered in stickers, impersonating Spiderman and has found several places to sleep. What fun he is having!!
We were lucky enough to get to see Phoebe and Lulu in their school Christmas plays again this year. Little Lulu was the lead roll in hers, being the Inn Keeper and even had to sing a solo [tissues came in handy!]. Phoebe was one of the ladies who had travelled from the east and her dancing was simply full of Eastern Promise....I would say her dancing was the best by far [but of course I am rather biased].
We were so very proud of them both and came away glowing.
Every morning Bob the Elf has left something for Sam and Lexi to make/do each day and here you can see them busy crafting......
....and here you can see Sam very proudly showing off what they each made. What lovely nativity scenes they both made.
I really love seeing all my little grandchildren being creative.
That's all I have to share with you today. Please share your smiles by linking them up below and I will do my best to pop over to check them out ASAP.
Thanks for your efforts to make the world a happier.
It's been another week of smiles for me since last time we had Wednesday fun. Shell is still needing help with the twinnies as her tummy is still pretty sore if she does too much so I've enjoyed lots of this...
We popped to the local library yesterday and picked up 10 books :-) They love their books so these will keep them busy for a day or two :-)
Of course what you've come here to see today is my desk. Well I make no apologies for the state of it today as I've not had a lot of time sat at it but here it is...
Both of my sewing machines have been pushed back for another little project I'm working on....what you can see is all you're getting as it's a special little project for Christmas time for 5 special little people in my life so I'm not giving too much away just yet......tease that I am :-)
I have also rooted out my Christmas box and had a good rummage through it for ideas and fabrics for a few projects I'm hoping to have a go at when I get a few spare minutes....more of that some other time. :-)
So there you go for this week....not a lot of anything other than hints and glimpses :-)
If you'd like to leave me a little comment to let me know you've called by I will do my best to call by at yours when I get a minute.
