Category Archives: Life in General

2011 – A Year in Pictures

It’s the end of the year, so I thought I’d do a recap. It’s been very interesting trawling through the archives and seeing how things have developed over the months and I thought I would share the experience…

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

It’s already giving me lots of new ideas for the next twelve months, so I hope you’ll drop in again to see how it’s going! In the meantime, I wish you all a very Happy New Year, where ever you are….see you in 2012! xxx
http://youtu.be/QEVF0fah17k

Silent Sunday

Winter Solstice – The Turn of the Year

We’ve been celebrating Winter Solstice for several years now, it seems a much more relevant date to remember, Mother Nature herself is swinging the New Year into action, rather than being dictated to by a man-made calendar. We get together with friends to eat and drink, it usually centres around a big game stew, and look ahead to the Spring and new beginnings. And when it’s over there is still Christmas to look forward to!

Things are just building up here. Our daughter is home from Uni, elder son and family arrive tomorrow and younger son will be with us on the big day. It’s a real and rare treat to have all the family under one roof. So as Planet Penny will be a little hectic for a while, I will take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry, happy and peaceful Christmas. Thanks to everyone who has left comments, or emailed me over the year. I may not have time to answer each and every one, but I read everything, and love to hear from you.

I’m looking forward to new things for 2012, I hope you’ll come along and join in the fun! And I do intend to share my recipe for the accidentally amazing Winter Solstice cake which I snatched from the jaws of disaster (but which has now succumbed to jaws of a different kind!)

HAPPY CHRISTMAS! see you soon xxx

Reasons to be Cheerful – Week 9

Hello, are you feeling cheerful? If so, I need all the help I can get this week, I’m in complete panic mode! If you’ve been visiting Planet Penny for a while you will remember I made a huge effort to take the stress out of Christmas last year and it worked, and this time I’ve failed miserably. For good reasons, because lots of exciting things have been going on, and I’ve been really busy, but when I was in Marks and Spencer’s this afternoon hyperventilating over my Mother’s shopping list I was not a happy bunny.

So please, please…if you have something to share which will make me smile, I neeeed it…for medicinal purposes!

I’m off to our Knit and Stitch group this evening with the sausage rolls and mince pies, so this will be a short post, but I’m not completely without Reasons to be Cheerful of my own to pass on.

My dear husband, who is not terribly domesticated, offered me a cup of coffee this morning and I gratefully accepted. It was a bit milkier than I normally have it, but I put this down to not being able to get our usual semi-skimmed milk, only the full fat version. I sat at the computer, sipping the coffee and dunking my chocolate biscuit and thinking “This tastes odd, maybe cos it’s a bit creamy”…sip,sip, …dunk dunk… “no, it’s definitely strange…but familiar….hang on it tastes of….chicken…CHICKEN?” Leapt up, went to the kitchen and yes, Bisto Chicken Gravy granules….!!!

Well you’ve got laugh, really!

Higgins has been helping with the Christmas wine list…

We’re ordering a case of this apparently…

The fact that it tastes very good, as well as having a great label makes me very cheerful indeed!

And I was able to get the January edition of ‘Making‘ magazine while I was in the City, which is never available out in the sticks! Lots of good things in there, but no pictures yet alas because I’ve lost the light for today…

So, do join in with some cheerfulness, either via the Linky below, or in the comments column. And if you are looking for more crafty inspiration, pop over to Silverpebble and the ‘Making Winter’ bloghop, there’s loads to see!

This will be the last ‘Reasons to be Cheerful‘ post until the New Year. I think once January gets here we’ll need it more than ever!

See you soon xxx

Dolly Peg Angels for Handmade Monday

Hello, and welcome to another Handmade Monday. I hope you’ve had a lovely weekend as we all rev up towards the Christmas festivities. I was very excited to find that I was able to control the weather on Planet Penny and arrange for some seasonal snow to fall!

I’ve just about reached the point of RSI on the needlefelting front now, and I’m longing to spend an evening with the hexipuffs or some crochet. I can’t believe how popular the needlefelted robin baubles have been, I think it’s the Kirsty effect! I’ve just posted the very last ones for this year on Folksy, the result of an experiment, but I really like it.

One of my fellow stall holders at the Pick’n’Mix Makers Market is Fiona Henderson of High Fibre yarns and she makes the most unusual yarns, a bit like french knitting, from lambswool, and I bought a few skeins to try out. So this is what I’ve used to make a little creamy wreath on which two teeny tiny robins can perch….

…they’ve still got the little feet that make everyone go ‘aaaah!’…

Looking at then here they look huge and a bit hairy, but in fact they’re only 2″/5cm long from beak to tail.

I also have a rather gorgeous raspberry pink yarn from High Fibre destined to be a mug hug soon, another reason to get at the knitting needles!

By way of a change, I’ve revisited the Dolly Pegs, and made a little Choir of Angels who are also listed on Folksy…

…and then decided the Dolly Peg Dolls would make a great tutorial to share, and you can find it here! I hope you enjoy it, I’d love to see your versions.

I’m off to do some baking now. We have the Christmas meeting of our Knit and Stitch group this week, and I’m using that as an excuse to get out the Frangipane Mince Pie recipe. I’ll have to get them into the freezer the minute they’ve cooled down though, they are SO more-ish I doubt there would be any left if I don’t!

Finally, thank you so much for the congratulations and nice comments about Planet Penny being on the Ch4 Favourite Craft Blogs list. I hadn’t realised before how many links there on the 4Homes website for makers and crafters, well worth a look. And of course the other place to visit today for handmade inspiration is Wendy’s Handmade Monday Linky over on 1st Unique Gifts.

I’ll leave you browse…

Have a lovely week! x

Reasons to be Cheerful – Week 8

Hello! I hope you are all feeling as cheerful as I am at the moment. but if not I hope that somewhere along the way between this blog and the others taking part we can bring a you a smile or two.

It’s jolly cold and windy here today, but at least we haven’t got the ice and snow that is making life miserable further north. Norfolk always manages to fit in a lot of sky over it’s landscape and I never tire of photographing it.

(Home and a warm fire is tucked away behind the trees in the middle!)

I’ve every reason to be cheerful today because Tim is home, and home for Christmas too. It doesn’t always happen, and he does have to go back offshore the day after Boxing Day for two weeks, but it’s lovely to have him about for the run up to Christmas.

Higgins is happy too. Watch the remake here of ‘The Railway Children’….Higgins in the Jenny Agutter role…”Daddy, my Daddy!”

I have a small gem from the grandsons to share too… Max and Benjy won a Christmas card competition. “Daddy, Daddy! We’ve won a vulture, a £20 vulture!”

So that’s Christmas dinner taken care of then.

I’ve had a BIG challenge on the needlefelting front, and I think I’ve cracked it. I had to create a hamster, and not just any hamster, a particular hamster. It wasn’t till I started that I realised just how tricky hamsters are because they can be very round and fat, or all stretched out and lithe. I cracked it on the third attempt, and gave him an apple to play with for good measure. I can’t tell you how happy I was when it all started falling into place! Phew!

Finally, I’m very happy to be able to share the exciting news I mentioned last week. I’m on a list! And not just any list, but the Channel4/4Homes Favourite Craft Blogs list!

I suppose I should be very cool about it, but I’m not. I just can’t believe when I look back at my tentative beginnings here on Planet Penny, that I’ve come this far. So I shall say it again…Phew!

And at the risk of sounding as if I’ve just been presented with an Oscar, it wouldn’t have happened without all you out there. I was reading a blog a few days ago where the writer was justifying her decision to disable comments, because she said she was writing for herself and not for other people to express opinions. But it doesn’t work like that in the crafting blog world. I need your opinions and feedback, and don’t know where I’d be without it!

I’m sure you all have lots of Reasons to be Cheerful you could share just at the moment in the run up to Christmas. If you put them in your Blog, add it to the Linky below so people can visit, and if you don’t have a blog, please feel free to tell us what is making you happy this week in the ‘Comments’.

See you soon….x