Hello 2011 :)

A belated Happy New Year to you all, hope your Christmases and New Years went with a bang! Ours was quite quiet as usual, spending actual Christmas Day here in Somerset just me and Karl, then travelling up to see my parents, brother and sister over New Year in Staffordshire. Had such a lovely time, just relaxing and not thinking about my work non-stop, didn't really want to come back:) hehe!

I spent much of my time away either just lounging around, doing tapestry, eating chocolate, talking late into the night, shopping and baking! It was also so nice to see my family all together for the first time in a year. We hardly see each other as we are all so busy and live at different ends of the country, but it was really good to catch up, was just a shame my brother had to dash on back to Newcastle for the New Year!

I was also given some really wonderful presents, I am one very lucky girl! Here are just some of the lovely things I received...

...a wonderful baking book by the very clever 'Biscuiteers' people - I have admired their gorgeous biscuits for a couple of years now, and now I can learn to ice my own! Me and my sister actually had a go at making some iced biscuits over New Year but we were slightly hampered by both lack of experience and lack of equipment! Will post some pics of our results another day, they did turn out quite well in the end considering, but I am so looking forward to buying some more bottles/nozzles so I can experiment with more colours and more elaborate designs! 

Mmmm... drool! How fabulous do these biscuits look?! (Ours sadly were not quite up to this standard... yet anyway!)

... an adorable fleecy hot water bottle - so useful as I am always cold and practically live with a hot water bottle glued to me - even when I am sewing I usually have one on my lap!

... a new tapestry I'd had my eye on for a while, called 'Garden Sampler' from Ehrman. Hopefully I will have it framed when it is finished.

I love it, there is so much detail in it if you look carefully, like the little dog and all the tiny bees! I spent quite a bit of time doing this over the last week or so, but now I am 'back to work' as it were, sewing will take over again and I sadly just won't have much time to spend on it.

... this lovely utilitarian metal sign will be the perfect addition to my studio wall - am thinking of putting it behind my sewing machine so when I am frustrated with it I might remember to 'keep calm', haha! Maybe anyway!

... and lastly these very cute ladybird plasters, which came in a tiny vintage style tin. There are 16 plasters, 4 of each design, with a letter and corresponding picture on each  - so sweet, almost too good to use!

I had such a lovely break away but I am now slowly getting myself back into the swing of things here! I am feeling very positive about 2011 at the moment - I have so many new ideas, projects in the pipeline and new products to be launched this year, and just feel that it will be a good one, fingers crossed! xxx