Naughty and nice...

It's been a busy week, but not so much for the crafts. I've been off work this week, and, for the first time in a long time, we had people to stay. Which meant that most days we were out on the beach (sunburnt twice, and I always laugh at people who stay out in the sun too long so the joke was on me), a lovely meal out at the Brookhouse Inn (steak and eton mess for 7.95!), a sleepover at my little sisters, and a trip to the cinema to watch the new Planet of the Apes film, which I highly recommend.

That being said, I did finish one thing this week; as the people who were staying are the grandparents of Rory I could not work on the photo stitch, so I picked up the christmas cupcake stitch, and this morning I finished it!

A few tips if you are using beads on a cross stitch. The first one is have patience. The beading needle's eye is incredibly small compared to a normal cross stitch needle, and it may take more than a few goes to get it threaded if you aren't using any aids. The second, be careful, that needle is sharp! The third and final tip is to make sure that you are using threads that match the colour of the beads. You can hide the colour of the thread on the aida by making small stitches, but if you use white thread with a red bead it will show up.

Now for the reason behind the title (although it does go well with the christmas cupcakes!). First the naughty. Even though I am supposed to be on a stash busting ban at the moment I caved, and in a huge way. There is a shopping channel called create and craft tv, and, as we were flicking through the channels last week, I spotted some gorgeous embossing folders by Sheena Douglass. They were only £30 for 8 so I snapped them up.

Sorry they are sideways! Aren't they lovely though? I haven't got any embossing powders (on the christmas wish list I guess!) but I can use these with ink to create some beautiful work (i hope anyway). My favourite ones are the roof with the Santa in the starry sky, and the figgy pudding lane one.

However, I didn't stop there. I watched the next hour.

This is the ultimate Roald Dahl pack. Aside from Little House on the Prairie the one book I remember having as a child was the trilogy of BFG, Matilda, and my favourite, George's Marvellous Medicine. I had looked at getting a few of the things from this range (got a few ideas up my sleeve) but it was a little expensive, so when I saw this I had to have it. I've already made a couple of cards from the decoupage kits that were part of the pack.

The first is a stepper card, for Charlie and the Chocolate factory. I loved the way that the Oompa Loompas were the original design, and not the orange characters with green hair we are familiar with from the first film. To make the tickets gold I glossy accented them. It adds a lovely shine to it.

The second is the BFG. These kits are perfect if you want to make a card quickly, as all the instructions are there, so all you need is some glue/double sided tape, and some foam pads to give the decoupage dimension. There is even inner pages and an expandable envelope. The one thing I would say is try to reserve this for giving to someone in person. It's surprisingly heavy so I imagine the postage would be quite a bit.

Now onto the nice - I may be an author by this time next year! I submitted my manuscript to a company called Britains Next Best Seller a while ago. They didn't get back to me so I assumed I was unsuccessful but yesterday I received an email telling me they wanted my book on their site! It's not a book deal, but it's the first step. Basically from my launch date (November 30th) my book will be available to pre-order for 16 weeks. In those 16 weeks I need to get 250 pre-orders. If I'm successful, I get my book deal. So, if you want any more information about what it's about or have any questions, put a comment below! It's called Lonely as a Cloud and will be £8.99 plus p and p. Obviously I will be putting more information on here in future, with a direct link to where you can purchase it and perhaps some samples. I will still be crafting of course, but I hope you will allow me a little indulgence for this.

See you next time

Emma x