And the winner of the Button Earrings is....

Harveycrafteycards!

Well done! and thank you to everyone who took the time to visit my blog and leave a message.

And its a good night from me x x

Because its Friday and I'm happy xx

I'm rather chipper this morning because the gift shop i'll be supplying with my jewellery is now going to opening in Carshalton instead of in Edenbridge. As I love Carshalton so much and it was my home for 5 years I am having a giveaway today! If you'd like to win these cute little button earrings please leave your details below. Please make sure you leave details so I can get hold of you somehow if you win. I'll pull a name out of a hat (don't actually have a hat) on Sunday evening.

Happy Friday everyone xx

The stark reality of growing old

I spoke to my mum today she told me how my dad had fallen out of the bath on sunday. Dad is nearly 80. Everytime I see him he is looking that little bit more frail. It scares me. The thought of one day not having my parents makes me feel numb.

He apparently hit his head on the radiator and has bruised his back. My parents have had their fair share of hospital visits over the last few years they fob everyone off telling us they are ok so they won't be subjected to another one.

I'm on my way to see them tonight to make sure he really is ok. It brings it home that we can no longer deny the fact they are getting old and how much they need looking after now.

How the tides have turned my mum was always the strong one, bossy definitely! It doesn't feel right that I'll have to go tonight and make the decision to take him to hospital or not it feels like I've suddenly become the grown up?

It happens to us all I guess I just wish it wasn't happening to my mum and dad x

What a talented lady!

The black cat behind my folksy shop and blog name is our Midnight, our beautiful boy who has heart disease. We wanted to get a portrait of him and before Christmas I searched around to find an artist who would do a good job. I found Sarah on Ebay, she claimed she was not very confident but wanted to practice to get better. The few portraits I saw of hers were very good so I asked if she would give a portrait of Midnight a go.

Well tonight I received an email with some photos of the portrait, I opened them to find the most SUPERB portrait.. below is a photo of our boy and a photo of the portrait. WOW is all I can say. The cost of the portrait was an amazing £30 + £3 postage which is fantastic value compared to other artists offering portraits for well over £100. I think Sarah is one talented lady who is far better than she gives herself credit for.

Sarah works from photos emailed to her. She is very friendly, quick to respond to emails and we completely recommend her work, you can see the quality for yourself. Sarah's contact details are: sarah_symonds@tiscali.co.uk and she is happy to be contacted.

Old is best!

I bought some gorgeous vintage buttons from 'crafted' the other day. They arrived on Thursday and I absolutey adore them. http://www.folksy.com/shops/crafted

I turned some of them into this today and this is now listed in my folksy shop. I love it - thank you Fiona xx

The Wonderful Suppliers behind the Design

I wanted to write a blog about all my wonderful suppliers and so here it is.
When I first started out I found it really hard to find good quality gemstones, I was lucky to come across Vanessa on ebay, she sells some lovely gemstones including turquoise, black agate, rose quartz and jasper beads. She also sells pearls, crackle beads, various silver findings and filigree beads. The quality of all her products is second to none and one of the best I have come across. As well as continuing to sell on ebay she has her own website http://www.thebeadbasket.co.uk/ Amazingly she offers free postage on all orders, no matter how small! The postage is super fast, you could almost blink and the parcel arrives through the door!

A major component to most of my designs is chain and toggle clasps. It can be very difficult to find toggles that are of a good size and that are of good quality, the same can be said of the chain, to make charm bracelets you need chain of a fair chunky size that can take a mass of beads. I buy all mine from Beezkneeze by Denny. She is a lovely lady who offers great quality products at very reasonable prices with fast postage. Denny's shop is on ebay and here is the link: http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/denny5569/

I specialise in fun jewellery, visitors to my folksy shop will see that I stock dolly mixture, liquorice allsorts, fondant fancies, iced gems & cake and flump charm bracelets. My clay beads are supplied by http://www.pixicreationz.com/ Nicky and her family are so clever, she makes lot of different polymer clay sweets and food charms. They are so realistic children often come up to my craft stall and say 'look mummy sweeties'....


For my glass beads, spacer beads, silver charms and everything else I have a few favourites where I buy everything I need from.


Of them are Sanctuary Beads, I love this shop. I buy all of my buttons from here as they are great value and the colours are fantastic, the price is reasonable too. I also love their glass bead mixes, they offer colours I have not found anywhere else before. The prices are all extremely reasonable and the quality is superb. They offer elastic cord, jump rings, headpins, pearls, glass beads, buttons, bookmark findings, assorted acrylic beads in various colour mixes... everything you could want really. This is another shop that is on ebay: http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/sanctuarybeads/
Fabfifi is as the name suggests Fab! Maureen is the lady behind the shop, I buy all of my flower and butterfly beads from Maureen. The butterflies are completely gorgeous and add a unique dimension to my jewellery and the colours are so vivid. The prices are very reasonable and again the postage is super quick. The link for Maureen's shop is http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/fabfifi50//fabfifi50/

Helen's Little Gems, again on ebay stocks some lovely murano hearts, all different sizes and colours. She also sells a wide range of beads, including pearls, millefori, murano and furnace beads as well as findings and threads. Great value, quick postage and great quality. http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/herosemineral/

Finally but by no means least, I love the glass bead mixes, miracle beads, silver foil beads and practically everything else sold by Beads Unlimited. This bead shop is based in Brighton but the online shop is: http://www.beadsunlimited.co.uk/ The ladies at beads unlimited are so helpful and its great that you can create custom mixes of certain beads, you get a reasonable amount of beads for fantastic reasonable prices.

The suppliers I have listed here today are some of the best I have found, I hope you will have a look to see for yourself. xxxx

The Wonder of Acupuncture!

I had acupuncture today. I have been visiting Eileen, my acupuncturist, since about September/October 09.

I'm not one of these people that believe solely in alternative therapies, I'm certainly not shy about phoning up and making a doctor's appointment when I'm poorly.

We had already been to see the Dr about our inability to conceive and we were progressing with infertility investigations when I first went to see Eileen. I was aware that others had tried acupuncture for fertility and it had helped.

My friend who suffers with migranes had also told me about how acupuncture had helped her, and suggested it may help my IBS. For my sins, I also had suffered with shoulder blade pain for a few years. So with my list of ailments (and a needle phobia) I went along to see Eileen.

My IBS had really started to affect my life, I was becoming scared to eat because of the stomach cramps I would get after food. I have, however, seen improvements after every acupuncture session and I am amazed to say I have not had an IBS episode for about 6 weeks now. I really feel as though Eileen has helped my body to balance itself, a solution I would much rather prefer than taking a pill every time I get stomach cramps.

I had been having shoulder blade and back pain regularly and always after gardening (one of my favourite hobbies). Again I had been taking anti inflammatory pills prescribed by the doctor for the pain, this is fine but does not offer a long term solution to the problem. Eileen uses the cupping technique, acupuncture and massage on my back at the end of each session. The first time I went to visit, I was in alot of pain when Eileen started to massage my back and she found instantly the problem areas, after using the needles and cupping, the pain had melted away. Pills mask the pain but it returns, massage alone is great but it does not solve the problem. Acupuncture provides me with instant relief and a continued improvement. My right shoulder blade is like new, probably better than it was before! I don't get any pain now whatsoever. The left is still a work in progress but is without a doubt getting better.

Sadly I'm still not pregnant but this is not because of the failure of acupuncture, unfortunately it cannot work miracles. Acupuncture has, however, increased my overall sense of wellbeing and has helped me and my body to cope better with the infertility investigations which have not always been pleasant. We will soon be having IVF and I hope to continue with my sessions throughout this treatment.

For what Eileen has done for me, I have nothing but great things to say about her, she is an extremely friendly and considerate lady who has been blessed with an amazing skill. One thing that always strikes me when I go to see her is that she just seems to know what she needs to do after checking my pulses, without me even having to say anything!

I never thought I would recommend anything that involved me being stuck with needles but I would not hesitate to recommend acupuncture, it has worked wonders for me and continues to do so! The link for Eileen's website is http://www.horleyacupunctureclinic.co.uk/

Meet the Family

I thought it would be nice to introduce the family!

This is us, I met hubby back in 2004 at our local gym, I actually asked him out! We got married on 3rd June 2006, it was a gorgeous hot day.

We live with our 4 cats, Midnight, Minstrel, Millie and Bumble in Horley, near Gatwick.

This is Midnight, we got him from the cats protection league when he was about 10 weeks old back in 2005, he is truly like a dog! Unfortunately he has heart disease diagnosed nearly 2 years ago now, every extra day we get with him is a blessing. My folksy shop is called Black Cats Whiskers, inspired by my boy.

This is Minstrel aka the hobbit, she is a true lady. We got her also in 2005 when she was a tiny baby, we bought her from a terrible breeder, she was in awful conditions and being fed all the wrong food, I had to rescue her. She's the naughty one of the bunch, always knocking things off the side with her paw and climbing into cupboards and getting shut in! She takes life in her stride. She has also adopted our neighbour, he loves her (luckily) and we often see her sitting in his bedroom window or on top of his kitchen cupboards, she has no shame!

Below is Millie, she was another rescue this time from Croydon Animal Samaritans, we got Millie when we moved to this house back in 2007. She was 9 months old when she was rescued from a garden with her mum and brother. They were living wild, she had never been inside a house, let alone played or had any human interaction. She wasn't ferral though surprisingly. Understandably she was pretty scared when she came to us but she was accepted easily by Midnight and Minstrel. The lady who was fostering her said that she would most likely bond really strongly to me, which she has. She's like my shadow and sleeps on the end of the bed by my feet (poor girl) every night! I enjoy gardening and Millie loves to help in the garden, I can carry her around in the garden under my arms for ages and she loves to help dig holes. If I ignore her she will bite my bottom!

Our last addition was Bumble in 2008, we helped out the animal samaritans for a while fostering, our last foster was Bumble, she was 6 months old, she wasn't mistreated but had an owner who could not care for her properly. It took us all of a few hours to decided she wasn't going to go anywhere! We had to stop fostering after that, I decided I was a really bad fosterer and would end up with a whole house full if I didn't give it up! Bumble is just beautiful, a true family cat, very gentle and boy does she like to talk! The cats were all close when Bumble came but she bought them all closer. She would play with her toys and would physically give the toys to the rest to play with while she sat back waiting her turn, she somehow managed to get them all involved in play time. I had never seen anything like it. Although she is friendly with us, she isn't so keen on strangers.

Its surprising how our cats, not being related, can get on so well. They rarely fight and get on better than I do with my family!!!

This is us for the time being, we are hoping to truly complete the family this year. We are due to have IVF very soon, so am hoping some babies will soon also bless our house!

My first ever blog..

I never thought I would be blogging! But here I am with my first blog, I must admit I'm a bit nervous about it all.

2009 has been an amazing year for me. I racked my brains for a very long time trying to think of a prospective business that I could run in my spare time. My sister even gave me books on how to start a cake business, but I knew that wasn't for me.

One day I looked in the window of our local jewellery shop in Horley. I saw an absolutely gorgeous watch made with beads and silver charms, I thought 'I can do that'.. came home and started searching ebay for all the bits and pieces. I had a good go at making one ..

It all progressed from there, I started making more and more beaded jewellery, took some to work and to my complete surprise they loved my jewellery and bought bits from me, asked me to make stuff for them too. It was a strange feeling - knowing that people actually wanted to wear what I made and even wanted to pay me!!

My mum then told me about a craft fair near where she lived, so I booked up for it and things have just progressed from there. Since the beginning of 2009 I have been trying to do as many craft fairs as I can, the run up until Christmas was mental. Some fairs have been terrible others have been fantastic but I have met some fantastically talented people and made some wonderful friends.

As well as doing the craft fairs I also wanted to start an online shop, folksy was recommended to me by one of my new craft friends. It has been amazing and I'm really proud of my little shop!

It has been nice over Christmas to have the time to list lots of new pieces in my shop.

I'm really excited about this year. I have a regular monthly craft fair slot starting in February. Will be stocked in a shop from March and am looking forward to lots of craft fairs this year. I also hope to continue to build my shop on folksy over the coming year.

It's going to be hard work but I can't wait!!!