Lowestoft Snow!!!

Well it has been terribly snowy here in Lowestoft since Thursday night...I took Friday off work because the forecast was terrible and they were right!!!

Here's some photos...

~ my drive and little car covered in snow...

~ my Dad sweeping the drive...

~ disgusting road conditions...

~ you can see my house at the top of the road in the middle of this picture ;0)...

All I did was have a wander down to the newsagents and back, by the time I got in I had rosy red cheeks...it is very chilly!!! So I am staying in and doing some knitting, stitching and reading :0) keep looking outside and thinking that I'll go build a snowman but keep opting to stay snuggled up warm inside lol ~ I must be getting old!!!

Stay warm and safe everyone!!! Thanks for reading my blog if you have done...

xXx

What a Day!!!

Oh wow I've had one of those days...

Here is my Facebook status from earlier:



Here are some pictures of the Norwich snow...




 ~ it was quite deep...probably a good 2 or 3 inches fell in the matter of an hour or so...

Then at home:
 ~ almost like a
different day wouldn't you say???

 ~ here's where I live...
I live in Lowestoft. 
Norwich is approx 25 miles to the west! 



Anyway this afternoon I have finished "Calories 
Don't Count..." & here it is...

There are sparkly threads all over this design. 
I might add some beads maybe...I am going to get 
some cute fabric from eBay and make it into a big comfy cushion 

What project next??? I'm not in the mood to get my 
HAED out again so I need another quirky medium 
sized project 

Hoping the weather and roads are a bit better 
tomorrow so I can actually spend a full day at work... 

x

Blog Competition Winners!!!

Thanks for joining in (everybody who did) I shall run a different competition soon...the correct number of Christmas Decorations on my tree was 314...I posted this competition on here, the WOCS forum and also Craftbubble!!!

The winners are as follows:

1st place) Polly with a guess of 289 (25 too few)

2nd place) Vilje Vanilje with a guess of 344 (30 too many)

3rd place) Lori (Trixter) with a guess of 275 (39 too few)

***EDIT Lori has kindly donated her prize to the 4th place person and that is***:
4th place) KathyK with a guess of 237 (77 too few)

If your name is up there then please get in touch via PM on Craftbubble or the WOCS forum or feel free to email me on: cross_stitch_sandz@yahoo.co.uk :D thanks everyone!!!

xXx

That Friday Feeling...

It's the weekend...AGAIN!!! Would you believe it??? Hehe...

I am looking forward to a weekend of chilling out ~ hopefully working on "Calories Don't Count..." ~ reading ~ seeing my best friend for a catch up etc...

What are your plans??? Hopefully something stitchy or crafty will feature in your weekend plans!!! 

REMEMBER my "guess the amount of Christmas decorations on my tree" competition (a few posts below this one) runs until Sunday evening...I have had 8 guesses so far & a couple are close but no one has guessed exactly so far!!! Have a guess and see what happens ;0)

I will pop a picture up over the weekend of my progress on "Calories Don't Count..." 

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading my blog!!!

xXx

2O13 diary...

Right my aim for the whole year is to write in my page per day diary. Now I don't mean writing emotionally about things ~ I mean writing about what I've done/accomplished so I can look at it next year & see lots of photos and memories I've saved from all the different things that I've done & places I've been to!!! That means I could stick a receipt or wristband to a page if I went to a theme park or a train ticket if I went somewhere :0) you get the gist?!

I'll also be putting photographs of my cross stitch projects in there too with dates I've stitched on them etc...I wish I'd done something like this in years before ~ the reason I am doing it is because I get so forgetful. Facebook is a good tool for reminding me what I did/felt because I'm always uploading pictures and statuses! However hopefully this diary will come with me everywhere & in years to come I can look back and remember 2O13 fondly!!! :0)

So yeah...keep reminding me to write in it cos I'll probably forget lol, I'll do really well for the first few weeks & then I'll get lazy haha!!!...;0)

Ohhh & enter my competition below!!! You can enter as many guesses as you like ~ if I didn't say that on the original post :0)
xXx

COMPETITION!!!

It's Competition Time!!!

Right here is a photo of all the Christmas Decorations that went on my Christmas tree, what I want you to do is GUESS how many decorations there are in total in this pile ~

I will give you a clue, there's more than 100 but less than 400 ;0) ~ I sat and counted them all as I took them off the tree...I want to beat my total amount on the tree next Christmas hehe...

I have 3 prizes and I will give them to the person closest (or who guesses exactly), and the two people after that who are next closest...in the case of a tie (where two people guess exactly the right amount or closest to the right amount) I will give the first prize away to the first person to comment and so on :0)

Here are the prizes (they are all Christmas themed and things I have either collected or got for free but wont use ~ hence the giveaway!):

1) Christmas card embellishment pack, 3D stickers and Christmas scrapbooking sheets (which could be used for card making)...

2)

5 metallic cards and envelopes, x3 Christmas shaped frames and 1 AOY chart...

3) 

x2 Anchor threads (one white colour number 2, one grey colour number 400), Christmas Nelson Kit and chart and Thread Sorter & Needle Station...

SOOO get GUESSING!!! 

Please guess by commenting below...

Good luck!!!

EDIT ~ this competition is open to anyone, so get guessing!!! It will also end next weekend (on Sunday evening at midnight) and I will get prizes to the winners over the course of the following week :0)...

xXx

Calories Don't Count At Christmas WIP Progress ~ 2nd January 2O13

As predicted this design is stitching up quickly!!!

No Kreinik delivery as yet but I'm hoping it comes in time for the weekend :0)

I hope that you like my progress this evening...as I am posting from my phone, if you are interested to see yesterday's progress to compare with today's then please look at the post below this one!!! :0)

I hope everybody has had a good day, I was back to work today for the first time this year!!! It went quicker than I thought it would...all I really wanted to do was get home & stitch though!!! The stitchy bug has well & truly bitten me (for the moment!!!)...

Thanks for reading my blog ~ keep on reading as I think I'm going to do a giveaway over the weekend ;0)
xXx

Calories Don't Count At Christmas WIP as of 1st Jan 2O13...

^^^

This project is so cute!!! My Mum bought it for me for Christmas from the Works, it came with everything you needed to get on with it straight away ~ chart, aida fabric and threads. However I looked at the chart and there are a lot of stitches and back stitch that would pierce and split the aida blocks (stitching on aida is NOT for me) so I swapped out the fabric and am stitching on some evenweave  

However I am well impressed with:

1) the quality of the threads included 

&& 2) the aida (if you were to use it) is hemmed around the edges to stop fraying...some more expensive kits don't even do that to the fabric they include!!!

&&& 3) the chart includes DMC conversion at the bottom for all the thread colours!!! FAB!!!

So I started stitching on the 3Oth of December and here's where I got to:

I have used some Kreinik fine braid in an iridescent pearl colour along with the white in the candy canes to give a bit of sparkle (it doesn't show in the photo though!) *insert sad face here*

You all know me, I've already been missing out some stitches and changing bits to suit me. Some of the writing (especially the O of "count" ~ look at the top picture, looks like two U's right???) it didn't look right on the chart so I amended it slightly to make it look better. Sometimes I think you do have to have been stitching quite a while if you want to tackle one of these kits, as sometimes the charts aren't the best and you do have to change some things about! I think if you're a new stitcher then the instructions aren't the clearest and sometimes the oddities of the chart may put you off ~ but if you're like me and have been stitching forever (well on and off since I was 8) then you'll tackle anything and modify it to suit you 

I hope you like my new project ~ it's stitching up quite quickly (although I have had to order some more Kreinik) so hopefully it'll be a quick finish and I can frame/finish it off in a cute way for it to be displayed next Christmas...and I totally agree with the caption "Calories Don't Count at Christmas" 

Here is my progress today (the 1st of January)...

Note the lack of icing on the right hand cupcake ~ I'm awaiting my Kreinik delivery!!! Should be here soon I reckon...I ordered it yesterday from Donna - website is here: http://www.cross-stitch-heaven.co.uk/ and have had an email to say my order is processing ~ Donna's usually dead quick but I'm not in a hurry anyway!!!

If you've read today's blog then thank you so much & Merry New Year...

xXx

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year to all my fellow bloggers and readers of my blog!!! I hope 2O13 goes exactly the way you want it to...I hope you achieve everything you set out to do and that 2O13 is a great year for us all...

xXx