If only we didn't need to sleep...

...for there seems to be a lack of hours in the day! This last week has been really busy with one thing and another....but somehow my camera seems to have lots of pictures on it - so somewhere in amongst it all, concrete (or should that be material) things have been achieved. Firstly, this draught excluder that I made for my mother. She bought some fantastic stuffing for me to use - called Cumulus, which was a bit more expensive than standard stuffing, but the minute I started using it I could see why - it goes a very long way and subsequently you need to use far less of it than a standard stuffing. I put Velcro along one end so that she can wash it and also a tab on one corner so that it's easy to pick up. I love the fabric and the picture shows it in situ at her house (I'd forgotten to take a picture of it before I sent it over to her with Ian, but completely unbidden he took a photo of it once he arrived - how did he guess I might have wanted that?!).

I also made Ian this little mouse after he requested that I make him something really small that he could keep with him. I was guessing he didn't want something pink and Heather Baileyish, so used the brown suiting in an attempt to keep it vaguely mannish and then added some ears and a tail taken from an old cashmere scarf that my sister gave to me (it had been attacked by moths, which is such a shame as it is gorgeous, but at least the remaining bits are going to good use!). 'Love' on one side 'You' on the other....it's meant to be Love You, but read it the other way and it's You Love....? mice?...small rodenty things? Best read the right way round. It is currently being flattened and battered by loose coins in his jeans pocket...I like things that look well-loved though, so that's fine.

A couple of cards - one for Baking Grandma who was 60 (did you read Creative Little Daisy's post a week or so ago about becoming a grandma and discussing the names we use for our grandmothers? - in our family Ian's mum is Baking Grandma, because she is the most incredible cook, especially in the cake & biscuit department, and my own mother is Little Grandmama - Zebra-Girl chose this name for her when she was around 2 years old, as even then she seemed aware that my side of the family are all very petite - odd, as I'd always thought that at that age adults all just look 'big'....but apparently not). The other card is to celebrate the arrival of a friend's new baby, yet to be named, but he's absolutely beautiful!

At the weekend my mother took the children out into the woods with little bags for collecting treasures and they came back with all sorts of things. When they came back I helped them to make pictures with them - here is Dinosaur-Boy's: he made what can only be described as a mad old bird...that he then made even madder by overloading the picture with nearly all the contents of his treasure bag. I particularly love the wings.

Earlier in the week Zebra-Girl made this - it's a shell house for an acorn that she found.

She lined the box with some of her favourite paper, and then used sellotape to make sure the petal and acorn hat staying in place....she uses sellotape on everything. One of our birthday presents to her was a craft box - full of string, sellotape and scissors - all the things that she was always asking me for, but was constantly being limited on how much she could use. It always seems to be the simplest presents that are most well-received...and the things she's made with it are so sweet - yesterday she made a picture of girl with string hair taped on - she'd divided the string out, like you'd do with embroidery thread.

And finally, I have started making some Christmas stockings for Zebra-Girl's school's Christmas Fair craft stall. I really like this stitch, but it does seem to use up vast quantities of thread....