A merging of blogs and a new home

When I left the library in March, and when I realised I was blogging regularly and the content of this and the Ducking Fabulous diary was interchangeable, I decided it was time for an overhaul. I am also now commuting to London and this means that  I need to be able to blog on the go, in addition to the fact that my content has changed considerably from when I first set up these blogs.

Consequently my new blogging home is here - please come and say hello! This blog will remain up as an archive but won't be updated any more.

Carla x

what a fabulous festive season that was...

So it's 2011 already! Happy New Year, all... I'm not at all ashamed to admit that I didn't see the new year in, as I was working both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day... so I had lots of champagne, celebrated with family early in the evening, was asleep by half past ten and awoke on 1st January feeling refreshed and perky. I have decided this is a much better way to start a new year than sleepy and hungover, lol!
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were spent with some of my wonderful family:
Twas the night before Christmass and the house was looking Christmassy...


Sitting down to a late afternoon, enormous lunch


And even Harriet had eaten her fill and needed a lie down by the time lunch was over


Then Boxing Day was spent with all the family


There were so many of us there, we even got a rare photo of myself, Mum and Dad all together


I failed to get all the cousins together, but here's a selection of them


It was a fabulous few days... I hope next Christmas is as much fun, but goes much slower.

Here's wishing you a glorious 2011!

a gorgeous Christmas stitching workshop

Last Tuesday evening saw the postponed stitching class at Writtle Village Hall. Sharon, Helena and Georgia were on hand to help us with the evening's projects, a reversible notebook cover and a robin-on-a-heart tree decoration. I haven't finished my robin yet, but here are some pics from the evening:

Chosen fabrics (this is the hardest part, there's always a basket full of pre-cut pieces, and they're all beautiful... picking just one from all of them is impossible!)


Ready to draw around


Naomi in the middle of hers


Stitched, turned inside out and showing my two gorgeous fabrics


Stitched up with a lace & button bookmark added


Sewing embellishments on the cover & inside


Finished! (and yes, I know it's a shocking photo but I was busy stitching, what can I say?!)


It was a fab evening, I swear crafting works as therapy! Very excited about the 2011 dates planned, there are lots of exciting things coming up to make :)

Ravelry - woo yay!

Today I joined Ravelry.com... how have I lived without it this long?! My ongoing 'gypsy' blanket has gone into my project notebook on there, and I'm hoping I'll trip over some friends there, I know of at least two people that use it :)

In other news, the wind is insane... I don't ever remember it being this strong, I don't think! Hoping poor Poppy survives the night, I don't think the soft top will stand up to a tree falling on her :|

Having a bit of a rough week so have retreated to bed with a happy playlist on Spotify, some knitting (to practice for the squares I'm doing for Nikki's baby blanket), a book about greyhounds and a bottle of wine... good times :)

beginning-of-the-month things I love :)

• The Paperie online stationery shop: quite literally, heaven on a webpage;



• My bargain towels from Anthropologie (well, actually from TK Maxx, which I also adore, but they’re made by Anthropologie…)


• MR2 ROC's immense helpfulness when my tyres unexpectedly made me lose control of the car last weekend… a girl couldn’t possibly wish for a more helpful bunch of blokes;


• Kat Williams’ RockN’Roll Bride blog – I’m a complete addict, it’s inspiring on many levels (as a blogger, as a photographer, as a jeweller) and it’s just a wonderful way of spending time;


• My dremel, even if it does mean sanding my own fingers from time to time. I bought it mostly for its sanding properties but it’s enabled me to drill dominoes and Scrabble tiles to make necklaces, which will hopefully sell as well at my fairs this month as they have done at work and among friends;


• Galaxy hot chocolate from Slice, the café across from work – it’s like drinking proper melted chocolate and it’s the best pick-me-up on a cold or stressful day


• SMINT spearmint mints, everyone on the enquiry desk is addicted to them, but the ones we like the most only seem to be sold in Asda;


• Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson – it’s finally here, I finally have my grubby little mitts on it… and so far, it’s wonderful! I’m not the only mad person out there, I know at least one friend who bought it and took the afternoon off to start reading it. So there.


• Last but very definitely not least, the friends I’m so lucky to work with, who have been beyond wonderful this week, I’ve been a bit emotionally fragile and they’ve moved mountains* to accommodate my unexpected tearful moments. They’re always fabulous, but have been even more so in my time of crisis.

an antique trunk, a bride and a giant polar bear

It's been a bit quiet over here on the Craft Experiment... but I've been as busy as a busy thing in the meantime :)

Last weekend Julia and I popped out to Halstead Antiques Centre and came back with a gorgeous but rather large antique trunk. My car is not built for transporting passengers and large objects at the same time:

I've also been to my friend Janine's wedding, she was a very beautiful bride:

(that's me on the right and our colleague Sue on the left)

There's been a giant polar bear at work for a few weeks (he's gone now, we miss him - we'd named him Iorek after the bear in Northern Lights)

Not much in the way of crafts going on, sadly... a couple of cakes have been made but mostly I've just been running around meeting myself coming backwards. I have plans in place to try and rectify this over the next few months, so we'll see...

As I haven't updated for a while, and I managed to rescue some photos from my old laptop that I thought were gone forever (lesson learned - back up EVERYTHING, frequently)... have a picture of my gorgeous Harriet when she was a puppy, the first time she saw snow :D

And just before it ends, here's a pic of me with my Arts Trail exhibition at Chelmsford Library :)