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Reasons to be Cheerful – Week 10

Hello, and a very happy 2012 to you! Have you taken down the decorations yet, or are you waiting till Twelfth Night? I must admit to taking mine down after New Year’s Day. The tree was in the window, right in front of Higgins’ look out point and I got fed up with things being swept off by a waggy tail and then secreted behind the sofa to be dismantled. (I got my own back when he stole a cracker, put a paw on one end and then delicately tried to remove the interesting long thin piece of card poking out of the middle… BANG!!! Gosh, I didn’t know he could jump quite that high!)

I find the first week of the New Year a bit strange…I end up a bit like Higgins trying to settle in a newly washed bed, I seem to spend a lot of time shuffling and scrabbling trying to make it all the right shape.

We definitely need a bit of cheerfulness with this awful weather, I hope you haven’t been swept away in this wind, or suffered power cuts or cancelled travel arrangements. I feel for Tim, who is stuck in the middle of the North Sea at the moment, I’m just glad that he’s on something with it’s legs firmly planted on the bottom of the sea…

Higgins has been to the sea, he went with his Boy…

He really loved having his Boy to stay over Christmas and probably the Christmas tree incidents were down to the fact that the Boy went home and left him feeling very bored.

I removed all the holly, which had more berries this year than I had ever seen before and hung it with the mistletoe in the cherry trees so the birds could polish off the berries…

Something which made me very happy was a crafty Christmas pressie from my friend Kit, who knows how much I like stationery…

But the best bit was the bit Kit painted herself…

How on earth am I actually going to use those labels…and part with them?

I’ve been shopping on Ebay…

…and talking of buttons, how about this for a Christmas present?

I’ve got so many possible crafty bits of inspiration all I’ve got to do is actually decide what I’m going to do next!

So what are your Reasons to be Cheerful in this first week of 2012? Do join in, either through the Linky below, or via the comments, it’s lovely to find out what every one is doing to get through the gloomiest wintery bit. And if you are in the southern Hemisphere, your sunshiny, Springy bits are most welcome!

See you soon! xxx

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

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

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

Reasons to be Cheerful – Week 7

Hello again, what do you think of my happy jingly heart? I’m always on the look out for heart shaped pretties and this was irresistible. One day I will have to go round the house with the camera and make a heart mosaic. One day…when I have nothing to do!

I’ve been busily sorting out orders after the weekend, and I just have one left…a hamster. And not just any hamster, I have photos of a dearly departed much loved pet to guide me so this has got to be right. Quite a responsibility, I’ll let you know later how I get on!

I’ve also been catching up on correspondence, which is why I bought some cards last weekend at the Pick and Mix Market. The trouble is, I’m finding it really difficult to spoil the beautiful presentation! I mean, look how lovely this looks…

…and I couldn’t resist buying these jolly Christmas cards from Moobaacluck…

(although I should probably have kept them a secret, I hope no one is looking!)

I must bring in Higgins as a Reason to be Cheerful this week, although he manages to be that anyway (99% of the time!) I had to chuckle this morning as I watched him carefully dragging the throw off the sofa, across the floor to the patch of sunlight streaming in through the french doors. Having arranged it carefully into a Higgy shaped nest, he selected his current favourite toy from the toy box and settled down to warm his tummy! But he’s come into his own getting me out of the house on days when without him I would NOT have ventured into the great outdoors, what with the wind, the rain, and the mud.

It hasn’t been like that every day, and today we had a lovely walk.

Finally I have a Reason to be Cheerful up my sleeve that I can’t tell you about just yet, but which me made me very happy this afternoon! Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I can share it, if it come off.

So what are your Reasons to be Cheerful this week? Please join in, just click on the Linky at the end of the post. It’s lovely to be able to read all the things, both big and small which have raised a smile over the past few days. And if you don’t have a blog just share your thought in the comments column.

See you soon! x

Planet Penny on Folksy – A Year On

I’ve just sat down at the keyboard with my Reasons to be Cheerful hat on, and realised I have an anniversary to mark this month. It’s a whole year since I needlefelted my first robin and my chums in our little Procrastinators Anonymous group said, “Just get ON with it!” So I put it in the Folksy shop which I had set up months before and then had a crisis of confidence, and I sold it. And it’s a whole year since I took a clutch of robins to the Pick’n’Mix Makers Market in Holt because Emma of Silver Pebble wanted to choose one, and she sold the rest on her stall…

And this time last year I was visiting the Market as a customer, and this time I’ve got a stall, so I think I’ve got a Reason to be Cheerful right here!

(While I was digging around in the archives I found a photo I can’t resist using again…how ridiculous is this…?)

Anyway, enough of all that silliness…

I’ve taken advantage of Tim being back in the middle of the North Sea to commandeer the dining table on which to sort out my packing for Saturday…

Oooh-er, putting it in a photo makes it look so darn little, but actually sitting alongside it I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Needlefelting does NOT lent itself to mass production!

I’ve had some fun with the baubles…

and I’ve made a Christmas Angel…

…or two.

And I’ve put a bigger robin in a wreath which I’m quite pleased with…

I’ll hopefully have lots of pictures of this Saturday’s event to show you next week (note to self – REMEMBER THE CAMERA!)

So all that is jolly stuff, but before I share some other cheerfulness I just wanted to say a big thank you for all the lovely encouraging comments you have been leaving me. I might be beavering away on my own, but I never feel it while I have so many virtual friends visiting Planet Penny. And also, there’s been some interest in the whole needlefelting process, and what it’s all about. Excitingly, I’ve been asked to run some classes next year, I’ll let you know more as I get the information. Obviously that’s only any help if you live relatively nearby, but when things are a little calmer in the new year I can put a tutorial on line if you would like. Do leave a comment if you are interested.

So back to the matter in hand. I’m still finding loveliness in the garden but with the weather turning colder it seemed a good idea to bring it indoors…

…and Sweet Peas in November?

After yesterday’s fog, this morning’s sunrise was beautiful…

…and it was fun getting a Higgins’ eye view of the toadstools!

And finally, and I know I’ve gone over the three reasons but that can only be a good thing, there was a glorious misty sunset the other evening…

…it’s just a shame it has to happen so early in the afternoon!

So, what Reasons to be Cheerful have YOU found this week? Please share them on your blog and link them through the Linky below and spread a little happiness. And if you don’t have a blog, feel free to add them to the comments on this post, I’m looking forward to hearing from you…x