Give and Take - musings my dear:)

So I didn't get to the zips last week. Oh dear! It seems life got a little busy last week.

But I am very excited to share with you some absolutely amazing goodies that landed on my doorstep today! So some of you may have heard about the first Give and Take (a kind of secret santa being hold NOW via the wonderful blog Yes, Dear). When I came across this from the lovely Jeni of Handmade Love fame, I thought this sounded like fun. So I emailed Ange from Yes, Dear - answered a short questionnaire about my style (or maybe lack of it - hehehe), and gave very vague answers. This was then sent over to Ange who had to "pair us up". The brief was to purchase handmade goodies based on the questionnaire from our partner from Australian and NZ creators and inject a bit of cash into the handmade community. Win, win all around I believe.

So I had much fun when the lovely lady I had been paired with introduced me to some wonderful handmade businesses I hadn't come across before - Sally and Jane (gorgeous handmade clutches), Molly Dag Made (handmade games for children) and am now big fans. It was a wonderful shopping experience. If you get a chance to do something like this again, I recommend it.

Well today, my wonderful items from a gorgeous lady called Helen made their way to me. I am blown away. She did an amazing job considering my lack of information. So here is the photographic journey I am going to share with you...

 This card is now up on my noticeboard. It is from LAURENCARNEYart.com. Stunning!

So this is what the first peek of the parcel looked like. Beautifully wrapped. Sooooo exciting opening something that isn't a birthday or christmas present...

Squeal! and then came the second peek!!! Oh my such pretty packaging I am in heaven already!

I absolutely adore this gorgeous pile of goodies from blossom & cat. Earrings, a clip and the cutest Owlet Sewing Kit. I have been wanting to make an owl forever and just haven't got around to it. NO EXCUSES now. Most of the work has been done...

Then this assembly of beauties from the uber talented Jo of Joallie Petit! A cuff, necklace and shoe clips. I must have looked quite a sight - wandering around the house with my black tights, birkenstocks (I had just taken my boots off, honest) and tried on the necklace and cuff. I couldn't put the shoeclips on the birkenstocks, although I did contemplate it for a moment...

So all I can say is thank you again Helen. I am a very happy lady right now:)

Links for you to check out:
 http://isaidyesdear.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/blossomandcat
www.facebook.com/JoallieP

So it's official. I am a bit of a break from my main little handmade business. I am taking some time of for myself and my family and to find out what creative styles work for me and scream IZZY B at me! So the months of June and July will entail me trying out new things, experimenting, learning new sewing techniques so when I come back in August I hopefully have some new skills that mean I can try new styles that I no longer fear.

Fear 1 to overcome: Zips! Zips, zippers whatever you call them have been on my list of sewing phobias and would have to be number 1. I generally make children's clothing and don't like using zips as kids have a tendency in my house to be pretty rough on their clothing. I like items that are easy to pull on/pull off as a child is running away from me whilst being dressed! I am sure there are plenty of other parents like that around here too;) My youngest seems to have ants in her pants all the time at the moment and just won't keep still when getting dressed. She likes to dress herself if at all possible so elastic and pull over the head items seem to be the best. But one of my other goals is to make more items for me and all the ladies patterns I have seen lately seem to have zips. I bought a new skirt pattern that looks really cool, so I am going to road test it and share the before and after on my little old blog.

Hopefully my instruction following skills will be better than my recipe following skills (teehee). I always read my patterns and recipes multiple times before I start to make items but this doesn't remove the muck up factor for the first few times...

I am also planning on creating a ladies skirt for my part of the Collaborate for A Cause submission and it really will need a zip. So why not make myself a few test run items first.

I will show you my novice attempts at inserting a zip. Share any tips I have along the way.

My lovely mother in law turned up to our house yesterday with a bag of zips for me to practice with. That will hopefully help.

That's it from me now, but I will be popping back in a few days hopefully to start the project xxx