Happy New Year

Lots of lovely new goodies waiting to be made into all the ideas I have whirling around in my head!

Have a very happy New Year everyone!

Jo x

Christmas Eve eve

Merry Christmas

Pickle-Lily would like to say a great big happy Christmas to all our lovely blog readers

See you in the New Year!

Last minute idea for a teenage son

I have been racking my brains for stocking fillers for my teenage son. I made him a phone sock - he gave it to his sister, I've bought him some microsoft points, he's not into beautifying (at the moment!) so no need for posh 'products for men'. I had thought of 'googling' Stocking fillers for teenage boys, but the thought of what I'd find made me decide not to do that!!!!
Yesterday P made a jelly in our new jellybaby jelly mould.

Jellybaby jelly mould (from Lakeland)

There had been much debate over what colour, but red was decided and the jelly made (it takes two packets if you buy one). Big brother couldn't wait for it to set! But eventually it was ready and turned out (very easily).

A photo had to be taken!

The laughter and giggles as this poor jellybaby was cut up, had it's legs chopped off and decapitated by the 13 year old son! So ... idea one is a jelly baby mould and some jellies - I've got to go out today for more jelly I have been told!
Stocking filler idea two - a voucher for a cake and one for a pudding of his choice to be redeemed during the year, or knowing him next week!

When Mr PL gets home tonight I'll see if he can do his ICT whizz kid stuff and can put a link on somewhere for the actual document.
The cards are written and the tree is decorated ... cakes to marzipan this afternoon!
Merry Christmas!
Jo x

Merry Christmas to all!

Well - it is now Monday afternoon, and I have finished the last Christmas Fair for Pickle-Lily, dropped off a load of goodies at Seabreeze and sat down to relax.... but I haven't finished my cakes off, bought presents let alone wrapped them or written Christmas cards yet! So I think this week is going to be just as busy! But I have still made time for Handmade Monday - and am looking forward to everyone's blogs this week.

Ice skating at Hestercombe Gardens

I spent last week-end at Hestercombe Gardens as part of the Christmas shopping market. A long day Saturday, left the house at 8 am back home at 9 pm! P visited Saturday afternoon to go ice skating - and loved it, so when she spent the day with me on Sunday she had two more sessions as 'wages'. £4 an hour for a child I thought was very good value for ice skating.
Whilst I was there I had a lovely chat with a lady about the mini Christmas stockings and I said I would publish the pattern.

Mini Christmas Stockings

I once knitted 30 of these as individual presents for the children in my class. On Saturday one of them visited me and told me he still hung it up every Christmas!
Using double knit and no 11 or 3 mm needles, cast on 24 stitches.
Purl 1 row.
Knit 1, increase into next stitch until the end of the row - 36 stitches.
Stocking stitch 7 rows.
Knit 14 stitches, knit 2 together four times, knit 14 stitches
Purl
Knit 12 stitches, knit 2 together four times, knit 12 stitches
Purl
Knit 10 stitches, knit 2 together four times, knit 10 stitches - 24 stitches
Starting with a purl row stocking stitch 13 rows. Finish with main colour.
Garter stitch 5 rows in Sirdar snowflake for the fluffy top.
Cast off
Fold in half and stitch the row ends and cast on edge together to make up.

Merry Christmas to all!
Jo and Pickle-Lily
xx

And another idea!

All ready to go!

A simple gift for teachers, grandmas, grandads anyone really! A hyacinth in a pot, a coloured cellophane bag and a snowman tag.
The tags were made by printing two white circles using a carrot - cut off the top and bottom, smaller end is the head, top end is the body. I used readymix paint. Sprinkle with glitter whilst the paint is wet so it will stick to the paint.
Cut a sponge into a hat shape - any sponge - bathroom or one of the green scrubby kitchen ones - with a pair of scissors and print the hat using any colour you like. Add details of face and buttons when the paint is dry using a felt tip pen.

Great fun, easy and effective.

Christmas Ideas

Welcome to another Handmade Monday - and thank-you to Wendy for hosting it while she is so busy. Congratulations on your success Wendy, and I am so glad I did my Christmas order back in about September! I'm also joining in with this week's Creative Me Monday another blog party full of brilliant ideas. So my blog today is one of ideas for Christmas - I hope you enjoy them.

A gardening gift

Garden book from Paperchase, hand cream and home made plant labels

The lovely hand cream came from The Beekeeping Ladies  Pickle-Lily and I have often met these lovely ladies on our travels their lip balm is amazing and Mr P eats jars and jars of their honey marmalade. The labels were an idea from a Christmas magazine. Paint plant pot wooden shapes with chalkboard paint and glue lolly sticks on the back.

Pudding net bag

The pudding net bag was a gift from P's grandma yesterday. Although Mr P is excellent at tying knots, lifting the 3lb pudding I make, out of hot water (it's too big for the streamer and it will all be eaten by the end of Boxing day) with a string handle can be a little wobbly at times - this is brilliant, and I can make puddings now without having to wait for Mr P to tie them up. 

A new Poinsettia and an old Advent Calendar

I love this variegated Poinsettia - makes a great gift for anyone, but I'm keeping it! The Playmobil advent calendar we have had for years, P loves building it each year and setting it all up, highly recommend this to everyone.

An elf on a shelf! This is this year's 'craze' from what I can gather. One of Father Christmas's elves sits on a shelf and sends messages back to FC on how well behaved people are. P and I saw the original one yesterday - £25!!!! - for a hardback book and a rather disappointing plastic elf (she didn't like his face), so we got this little fellow instead. He is now going to be part of the Christmas traditions and travel around the house (more of a game as who can find him) and will probably visit my last Christmas Fair - Hestercombe House - next week-end with me. P is coming with me on Sunday to go ice skating.

Elf on a shelf

I will be back with more ideas later in the week - have a lovely week.
Jo x
P.S. washing machine repair man has just been, guess what I need for Christmas!

Festive Friday - Decoration Swap

This week an exciting package arrived full of these exciting parcels - all beautifully wrapped up in starry tissue paper.

It was my Christmas decoration swap from Giddystuff - organised by Hookin' With Laalaa (Congratulations). I have been so busy this week with school, family and orders that I saved opening it until this morning to brighten a very wet and hailey day. Inside were all these goodies ...

Thank-you!

How cute!

Perfect!

Beautiful - and it's mine Pickle-Lily!

Very colour co-ordinated, scrummy and lovely!

Beautiful Knitting Goddess yarn, reindeer decorations, a cute crocheted tree decoration and pin cushion (the photo shows you how cute!), chocolates (yum), a mini sock kit and a beautiful beaded bracelet (probably will have to be hidden from you-know-who or I'll lose it!!).

This is what I sent

I'll show you what's in it when I know it's safe!

Thank-you Giddystuff, so much for my lovely things.

Have a lovely week-end

Jo x

Proud Mum

Today P had her work featured on the Crafty Ribbons blog .

She made this all by herself following their tutorial.

Candlelight

Blackmore Farm

A busy week or as my husband would put it ... 'Busy! I just spent four hours burying the cat.' He is a HUGE Monty Python fan.
I have been busy crafting and at Christmas events - some were badly organised, some were fine, some had browsers not buyers and yesterday was super. Pickle-Lily was at Blackmore Farm, Cannington, just outside Bridgwater.
What an incredible place.

The Great Hall

Amazing flowers everywhere! All the candles lit for the evening.



Some of my wares

 I was in the Gallery with Heather who sold beautiful bronze figure, lovely Linda who sold out of scarves and her marvellous mum who does amazing machine embroidery! Full of dark wood panelling and stone walls with leaded light windows. It was very cold during the day, but in the evening when the heating went on and the shutters closed we soon warmed up. The house was lit by candles for the evening, with a blazing log fire in the Great Hall and period live music playing. Mulled cider was available and lots of shopping done. I'm afraid my poor writing skills do not do justice to this place and I couldn't take photos in the evening as it was so busy!

Imagine buying your mulled cider with all the Tilley lamps alight from here.

Things have now slowed down and I am trying to catch up with orders, blogging and housework. So I shall return later in the week.
Jo x

There's Only 26 Sleeps...

My scarf

Hi its P,
It's been a very busy week at Pickle-Lily (again)!
Yes a depressing thought to most adults but I'm very exited - I've been making loads of pressies including a pompon scarf for mum and something else she doesn't know about! The pompon wool knits up really quickly and the scarf is extremely long!

I've also been sewing coasters for family, my favourite is the bumble bee!

Soon the advent calenders will be up and we'll have to drag dad up into the loft to get them, along with a chocolate one which gets bigger as you get closer to Christmas! All this excitment (and squealing on my behalf) has made for a very excited time (except Dad as I may have burst his eardrum with all the squealing).

We also went back to Coldharbour Mill for another fair!

If you've come from Handmade Monday please go see everyone else's beautiful blogs.

Pxxx

PS Mum will be back later in the week.

And the winner is ......

...Picto!

Well done Picto

Congratulations you are the lucky winner!

Hi its P here and I would like to thank everybody who followed our blog and left a comment!
You have won...

A beautiful bag made by Claudia from Annabelle bags, from lovely spotty and floral Laura Ashley fabric


... Issue two of Mollie Makes with knot necklace kit

...a ball of Adriafil Impulso trends

.... half a metre of Japanese shopping fabric

... a little box of Lindor chocolates!

I hope you enjoy them!
After lots of paper folding, I picked out a piece of paper to decide the winner, thanks for entering!

No peeping!

I hope you keep following, today I continued with my project-a knitted pompon scarf for mums Christmas pressie- watch this space; and made a trip to MIU after popping my foot!

Mum and I are off to Coldharbour Mill on Saturday for their Christmas Fair, really excited, I wonder if there will be alpacas again?

This is P signing off xxx

Only 7 to go!

Only seven more followers needed and then Pickle-Lily can draw for the giveaway!

What you can win!

Thank-you for your lovely comments and now to business.
It's been a busy week - as always. Last Tuesday I went to the W.I. where we are making shopping bags out of old t-shirts. They are going to be sold and the money donated to Weston Hospice.

So easy to make

I used my son's old t-shirts as adult ones made ginormous bags that would drag on the ground if filled with shopping. So easy to make - sew across the bottom and cut off the arms and neck to make the handles. There is a demo here .

Ho-ho-ho!

I also returned to the lovely Connies in Weston to make a sock reindeer. Here he is guarding a basket of reindeer food ...

Socket

P has named him Socket - the antlers aren't quite right, they look more like horns so I shall have to rethink them. I met a lovely group of ladies and we had a super evening making our reindeer in a lovely environment. And of course P wants to make one now.

Have a good week - please visit Wendy at 1st Unique Gifts to see what everyone else is up to for Handmade Monday. I am looking forward to Coldharbour Mill Christmas Craft Fair this Saturday and not the hour appointment I have the dentist (again!) later this morning!

Festive Friday - Felted Christmas Tree Decorations

Welcome to this week's Festive Friday

Felted Christmas Tree Decorations

I made these to use as either Christmas Tree Decorations or as a decoration on a gift. They are very easy to make using any pure wool. I used Rico's Creative Filz yarn to make these. Instructions are on the Felted Tree Decoration page.
Don't forget to enter the Fifty Follower Giveaway.

Fifty Follower Giveaway

Pickle-Lily is having a giveaway.

 I would like to reach fifty followers so I am having a giveaway. Here is what you could win ...

.. .a beautiful bag made by my friend Claudia from Annabelle bags from lovely spotty and floral Laura Ashley fabric

... Issue two of Mollie Makes with knot necklace kit

...a ball of Adriafil Impulso trends

.... half a metre of Japanese shopping fabric

... a little box of Lindor chocolates

All you need to do is....

Follow my blog and then leave a comment to say you have done this. If you are already a follower (thank you) please just leave me a comment.

For extra chances to win you can....

'Like' me on my Facebook page and leave a comment on my blog and on my facebook page to let me know you have done this. If you already 'like' my FB page then please just leave a comment here and FB!

If you would like to blog about my giveaway this will give you another entry. Again leave me another comment here on my blog.
Please ensure that I am able to contact you.

I will keep this giveaway open until I reach fifty followers on here and FB when I will then put all names into a hat and get Pickle-Lily to choose a winner!

I will post internationally so all welcome to enter

So what have I been up to? Last week I felt rotten, I had my tooth out Friday morning and by Tuesday I was back at the dentist as it had become infected, so I didn't manage to craft much - which is why I decided to have my giveaway instead. This week I am busy again and there will be a Festive Friday so please pop back. So why not pop over to Wendy at 1st Unique Crafts for Handmade Monday to see what everyone else is up to.

Jo x

This is now closed and a lucky winner has been chosen.

The easiest play dough ever!

Mini stockings

This week I am busy knitting mini stockings for two fairs I'm attending.
Last week I made some red glittery cinnamon scented play dough for the children at school. It has got to be the easiest recipe ever - no saucepans or bowls with mix welded to it! You need

1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup salt
4 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 tablespoons oil
1 cup of boiling water

Mix it all together and knead. It will make your hands lovely and soft.

just mix

No need to cook it - the boiling water does it for you. I added red food colouring, glitter and some cinnamon. I've made black sparkly, white with toothpaste (scent and colour) whatever takes your fancy. It will keep in an airtight container for about a month - depending on any other items that get mixed with through play. It would make a great gift for any child of whatever age!

Red sparkle play dough

Happy Handmade Monday and Creative Me Monday to you all and thank-you to Wendy and Jenny for hosting and thank-you for all your lovely comments.
Jo x

Handmade Monday

We won a Blue Peter badge for this photo!

Happy Halloween!
Yet another busy week revolving around the children! Lots of being Mums taxi and trying to fit some sewing and knitting in. Today I've got to 'empty' the pumpkin so Pickle-Lily can carve it when she gets home tonight! This year's pumpkins were a disaster, so had to use an old photo of one we grew a few years ago.

My very useful unit

My contribution for this week's Handmade Monday - many thanks to Wendy and thank-you to you for stopping by - is this brilliant unit Mr PL has made me. It is made from two IKEA shelf units screwed together and castor wheels on the bottom. The cutting mat fits perfectly and it is now full of all those bits and pieces that were stacked around that I use every day. It can be wheeled to wherever I am working (I'm not lucky enough to have a workroom) and can also be used as place for visitors to put their cup of tea  Just need to find the time to paint it and make some labels to go on the drawers. It could always have another floor built on it if needed as well.
I have been busy with P's help making up sew it yourself kits

I made them as raffle prizes but they have turned out to be on be of Pickle-Lily's best sellers this year so far!
Just to let you know there probably won't be a Festive Friday this week as it is my turn to visit the dentist and have a tooth out. I'm off to visit some more blogs on Handmade Monday now and look at lovely things.
Jo x
P.S. Have just joined in with Creative Monday - lots of lovely blogs to visit there as well, why not pop over and have alook?

Festive Friday #3 - Happy Diwali

Knitted Diva lamps

For Festive Friday today, a make and a bake - well actually no baking just mixing!
The make ... Knitted Diva lamps, I have said before that I will knit almost anything!

Knitted diva lamps

Version 1 - horizontal rows

Cast on 30 stitches using 4mm needles.
Garter stitch or plain knit 24 rows. I used a self stripe double knit yarn.
Join side seams.
Gather up one end and pull up tightly, bind and tie. Turn right side out so the seam is on the inside. Repeat at the other end and push inside tube to make a cup shape, sew a few stitches through both ends to hold in place.

Version 2 - vertical rows

Cast on 16 stitches using 4mm needles.
Garter stitch or plain knit 50 rows. I used a self stripe double knit yarn.
Sew cast on and cast off edge together to make a seam.
Gather up one set of row ends and bind and tie. Turn right side out. Gather up the other set of row ends, bind and tie. Push this end inside tube to make a cup shape. Use a few stitches to hold in place.

I used  battery operated tea- lights (mine came from Hobbycraft) and earthy striped yarn, but for Christmas you could use glittery, sparkly or any colours you like. Thought these would look great on my stall, especially on evening events or in a Diwali display, child's bedroom ...

And the bake ..

Barfi sweets

 On the Bake ... page. Delicious, can be made and eaten at any time of year, and again any colour you wish!
Have fun this week-end
Jo x