silent sunday

 

 

christmas 2013

Christmas has come and gone in a flash. I love this time of year, even the craziness in the build up to the big day. An endless round of carol concerts, plays, school Christmas fairs. Not to mention the house tidying, present buying and maybe a spot of making to be squeezed in.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much time for making this year; just a few bits to add to the decorations for the house.

I was lucky enough to receive a new camera lens. As you can see from my photos I have been having a play.

I've been having great fun fiddling about with it and I'm pleased with the results so far.

I've got to get back into the habit of using my DSLR more. I've got so lazy using the iPhone all the time (the Camera+ app is fantastic for photos) but now it is time to go back to basics.

 



How do you take your photos? Camera phone? Compact camera? DSLR? Manual setting or programme mode? Any tips for a beginner?

christmas craft tutorials

There are some wonderful tutorials on blogs lately so I thought I'd share with you some of my favourite Christmassy tutorials and printables.

I love bottle brush trees and I have a few of the little beauties in my possession now. I have never tried to make my own yet though and Cathe at Just Something I Made recently posted a tutorial on how to make your own - who knew you could do that?!

 

Something else I've been obsessing over for the last few years are Putz houses. These glittery cardboard houses look so sweet. I made a church and a few houses last year but unfortunately I didn't store them correctly and they got all squished in the loft.

I'm definitely going to make them again and these templates from Little Glitter Houses make the job a lot easier.

There are some beautiful free printables out there in blogland. These woodland chalkboard style gift tags from Lia Griffith are great. The fonts that Lia has used are so sweet.

I often drool over the tutorials on Tatertots and Jello, the things that Jen can make are awesome. She recently took part in a series called Knocktoberfest and this Pottery Barn mirror knock off is definitely on my long, long list of things to make. I'll need to do some research on some of the items used to distress the mirror. I have never heard of muriatic acid before! Unfortunately I don't yet have a Silhouette Cameo so I'd have to cut the vinyl by hand but I guess that would add to the handmade charm.

I hope you enjoyed my little round up of fab tutorials!

beautuful christmas decorations

don't you just love this time of year?

365 photo challenge - day 6: it's all over for another year

The tree was taken down on New Year's Eve but now it is time to take down and put away the remaining Christmas decorations for another year. The house looks bare, I might just leave the fairy lights up a while longer....

it's beginning to look alot like Christmas

Things are getting busy here at nellie dean towers.  Web orders, Facebook orders and a big shop order to complete. Exciting times indeed! I appreciate all of them, so thank you.

These personalised Christmas stockings were a big hit last year. I loved stitching each one, taking customer comments into account to ensure that they were what the customer had in mind. Each one features a mixture of new and vintage glass buttons, hand embroidery, applique, cotton tape and trims. Not to mention a fab selection of vintage, upcycled and new fabrics from my stash.  Each one is entirely unique and, I hope, made to treasure for years to come.

My son is 6 and at this age his drawings are super cute.  I thought it would be lovely to have a way of preserving them so I transferred the image to fabric and stitched over it. Hey presto, one unique Christmas tree decoration! You just have to love a snowman with big slitty eyes.

OK, it is Sunday night and the usual round of homework, reading and uniforms beckons. I hope you have enjoyed me sharing some of my Christmas goodies with you. If you are interested in buying some of them, they are available on my website

Surviving the school holidays - just!

Well how's it going so far? We are on the home stretch now and into the last week. Seven weeks is a long time! We have been having lots of fun and visiting places, Legoland included. We spent ages in miniland where the models of places around the world are. The space shuttle launch was worth waiting for according to my 6 year old.

Look at that! Megafobia - the best wooden rollercoaster in the UK, apparently! I'm not know for my love of rollercoasters but managed to brave this one at Oawood theme park. I even managed to totally scare myself silly by going on Speed.  My friend totally loved it and we had a great laugh at the photo of us together on the ride afterwards: I was looking terrified and she was screaming in delight. And, no, I didn't buy it!

We had a camping trip to the New Forest and took a look around Salisbury (photo of the cathedral cloisters above). The other half used to work in Salisbury so it was nice revisiting places for him and experiencing new ones for me. There are lots of wild horses in the New Forest and I had been going on about not leaving food in the tent. Needless to say I managed to forget my own rules and managed to wander off to watch the other half and my son playing frisbeee, leaving the door open to everyone. A little horse decided to wander into the tent and proceeded to lick the butter! The cheeky little thing's rear end was sticking out of the tent when I got back! Oh if only I had my camera.

There's less than a week left of the school holidays so we now have the usual mad scramble for new shoes and uniform. When he's back in school I'll be able to show you some of the things I've been working on. Fab new Christmas decoration designs, stockings and Christmas cards.

What have you been getting up to this summer? Tell me about your sunny holidays. I've forgotten what the sun looks like!