Those elusive first few sales!

On Folksy, someone started a thread asking for shops that had yet to make a sale or were under 5 sales to leave a link to their shops and she was going to blog about them to get the word out to a wider audience.  She had such a response she was starting to wonder how she was going to pick a few for her blog, another Folkster then offered to do the next few and then a third offered to carry on, this is where I stumbled on to the thread so I decided to do the next 6 shops from those that responded to the original question.

So here are the next shops from that original thread and my favourite items from their shops, all of them looking for the first few elusive sales;



Maram and Merryberry
KatyJaneCrafts and Images21
Bonnylass and MadbrilliantIdeas
So there you go, some new shops for you to look at, all full of real treats, as usual click on the pic for mre detail or click on the name to see what else they have to tempt you with!!
See you all soon, x

I have missed you! I am back and with an award too!

Finally Blogger has let me back in,  I have missed my blog so much!  I think access was lost when Blogger had a bit of a meltdown the other week but we are back - yeeha!

Right before the meltdown I was given a blogger award so I would like to thank Maria Devine of the beautiful mariadevine.blogspot.com for awarding me 'The Versatile Blogger Award'

Now there are rules for receiving the award and these are as follows;

1.  To thank the person who gave the award 

(Done)

2.  To tell you seven things about myself......hmmm

 - I love the colours green and purple

 - I have 3 ridiculous cats, one who jumps at his own shadow, one who loves in the kitchen and never leaves and one who likes to hunt socks and crochet items!

 - I dont like milk so my tea and coffee are black

 - I have just bought a little purple Micra called Shlurple

 - I used to be scared of crumpets (because of the holes) but now I am not and they are yummy!

 - I love camping and cannot wait to go away this year and live in my gorgeous tent

 - My fave drinks are red wine or a vodka and coke

(Done)

3.  To pass on the award to 5 newly discovered bloggers ( as I only started blogging this year all bloggers are new to me!)  and they are;

 - Charlotte Hupfield Ceramics

 - Umbel Handmade Mania

 - Moody Cow Designs

 - Dab and a Dash

 - Maytree Lane

(Done)

Right, so there you go, my very first award!  I am chuffed in case you didn't know.  Back soon with more posts now that we can get in again, see you all soon, x

Return to the labour market and mummy guilt

Well on Tues 3rd May I returned to the labour market for the 1st time in over 10yrs and this was an interesting mix of scariness and excitement.
My new job is a minibus driver for a charity that works with Autistic adults, I drive out in the morning and collect the service users from home to bring them into HQ for a days activities, the middle of the day is mine and then in the afternoon I go back to HQ to collect all the service users on my run and take them all home again.
This last 4 days I have been mainly learning the routes but pretty soon the bus will be mine...should prove interesting and challenging yet rewarding methinks.

Anyway on top of me returning to work was the fact that my children at 4 and 2.5 have never known me work, daddy goes to work all the time but mummy has never worked so this was going to be a big change for them to deal with too, not just me.
Tues, Wed and Thurs things seemed to be going fine, it was Friday when I started to pick up some attitude from the eldest and wondered if it was work related, but it was only when I got to my mums to leave the kids with her for the afternoon that it became apparent that this attitude and back chat was to do with me going to work when she said to me 'please don't go to work this afternoon mummy, I don't want you too' with tears in her eyes, that nearly broke me then but I managed not to cry and we had a big cuddle.  That afternoon I was feeling a fair bit guilty, I know it will pass and that we will all get used to it but that hurt.

So as it was the weekend and a proper weekend for me I decided that I would make something with eldest, she always wants to make something!!
Daddy took youngest out shopping with him and the eldest and myself set about making a mess in the kitchen, I had decided to make chocolate Rice Krispie cakes with some Easter Egg chocolate (the stuff that has managed to survive Mummy and Daddy's raids!)

She had great fun mixing the Krispies into the chocolate, most of then went in to the bowl, fair few didn't, she had even more fun eating the mixture of the spoon!

We both were exceedingly (!) pleased with the end results and I can tell you that they did taste real scrummy.

On Sunday, I decided to crochet some stock for the shop, but guilt kicked in again when I was asked what I was making and upon telling them that I was going to make an owl there was a dual chorus of 'Oh I would LOVE an owl Mummy' from both of my little ladies, it has been a while since I have made them a toy and they have watched me make so many for the shop so I asked what colours they would like and have spent today making them the owls they asked for, what do you think?

I think they are so cute that I am definitely making more to sell!

Anyway, hopefully my little ones will feel a bit better now, wait and see how this week goes, fingers crossed for no more guilt trips!