Finally finished the bookmarks. Unfortunately the place I got my blood drop beads from in the U.S. only had 299 in stock when I ordered 350. Then when they got here about 20 of them were broken (being czech glass) :( So the grand total I have done is 273. Today Keith and I punched the holes and attached the tails to the carded bookmark thus --->

Pic doesn't show them up as nicely as they look in real life. The blood droplet is a deep garnet red.

I was saying to Keith they are lucky I am charging per bookmark and not by the hour lol! Would have cost them several thousands haha! ANyhoo I'm so glad they are finished and I can't wait to jump into some other craft projects that I am keen to try - namely appliques on tshirts and fleece pants for Laila, dyeing wool and some other general sewing things I'd like to try.

Going to take the finished bookmarks to Bookclub tomorrow night then hopefully Fiona (aka Lauren Crow) can pass them on to the Burnside Library for distribution.

Yummy Woolies

Mum just finished knitting up these gorgeous Longies and matching Beany for Laila from some lovely 8ply I got on OzeBaby. Next project is some Shorties from some 12ply that the lovely Suzanne from NC dyed for me for a swap :) Can't wait to see how those turn out!!


My little girl is growing so fast. She is officially sitting up now at 6.5 months. She has been sitting for short periods from about 6 months but it is only now that I feel safe leaving her there without a barrage of cushions surrounding her in case she topples over!

She is also attempting to crawl. Gets up on her knees and shuffles backwards a lot. I remember James doing exactly the same thing when he was trying to crawl too. Memories huh!

Must get some new Nappy Stash pics soon. It is forever evolving though. In the process of acquiring more D'Lish because we're needing Large now to accomodate her long rise and chubber thighs ;)

Bookmark job

This is the bookmark tail I designed and made 100 of for Fiona's 3rd Percheron book "Goddess". They were given out to press and special people at the launch. I even got my name in the acknowledgements ;)

I used gold colour tigertail wire and a mix of beads including swarovski crystals to match in with the colour scheme of the cover and the setting of the story.

This lot was comissioned by Harper Collins Publishers.

The ones I am doing now are for her first crime novel "Bye Bye baby" which she writes under the psuedonym Lauren Crow. I have used black wire and a mix of red and silver beads with a garnet colour Czech glass bead to look like a drop of blood on the end. Really happy with them and I'm about halfway to completion.

This job is for the Burnside Library who are having a special event. At first they wanted 1000-2000 but that was going to be impossible for me so we whittled it down to 300. Will post pics of those once finished :)

Scary news

Talked to my friend last night who does Family Daycare with James. She was having some bad stomach pains on Thursday last and after much testing they removed her appendix. She had to go in for a follow up yesterday and they told her that her appendix had cancer in it :(

Now she has to have another barrage of tests to see if it in her lungs or liver and also a colonoscopy and an operation on her bowel.

It shook me to my roots when she told me. You just never know when life is going to throw you a curve ball. She is younger than me, married with two gorgeous daughters aged 5 and nearly 3.

I am praying and hoping that she will get good news after the tests are completed. She should know by next Thursday.

Quiet

All quiet in the house (except for me coughing still). James and Laila are in bed and Keith is at work. Should be finishing soon though.
Update on the bookmark job - we've whittled it down to 300 now. I had to order one particular bead from the U.S. and get it Fed-Ex-ed across here because I have so little time to get them done. The shipping cost more than the 350 beads I bought eek! Oh well - I did factor that into the cost when I gave them my price. Yeah so hopefully they will be here in 3 to 5 days and I can get cracking!!!
Argh this cough is driving me NUTS!
Better get off here as I have washing to fold and wet washing to hang on the drying rack. FUN ha!

Cold :(

So the cold finally caught me! Thought I was going to escape it but nooo. Of course I got it worse than the rest of the family - typical.



Have been freaking out about the bookmark beading job. Trying to source the right beads is proving next to impossible and now looks like the closets to what I want will have to be sourced from the U.S. argh. This means added time taken up for shipping it out here and doesn't leave much time for the actual work. I am going to have to committ to significatly less than they want although I can't imagine why a library wants 2000. Especially when they find out the cost!



Anyway it is stressing me out a bit.



Today Keith has taken James and Laila out shopping to give me a bit of time to myself. Bless him :) So far I haven't done anything except eat honeycomb yoghurt and drink tea (and browse online). I've been looking at wool dying links. Would love to have a play with that sometime!



Trying my hand at some fleece pants for Laila at the moment too. Not sure how they will turn out lol!



Ok I need another cuppa again ;)

OMG

I really should post here more oops.

Today I had amazing news! My author friend Fiona McIntosh emailed me with another bookmark order.

Harper Collins commisioned me to make 100 jewelled bookmark tails for her last fantasy book "Goddess" which everyone loved.

Now she has lined up a job from Burnside library for me wanting bookmarks for her new crime novel coming out later in the year (August?).

The catch this time is that they are talking numbers around 1000 or even 2000. Eeeeek.

Not really sure I can cope with that amount but there is room for discussions. Now I'm off out tomorrow to look at suitable beads and pricing to give a quote. Scary but exciting :)

In other news Laila slept in her cot for the first time alst night and went 10:30pm til 7am. So lets hope that keeps up lol! She's sitting here chewing her sock as I type. Time to start tea. Apricot chicken mmmmmm.