Needle Felted Delights

I hope you all had a good Easter (and ate plenty chocolate!) I have not had much time to blog lately, I am still busy going through my things and listing some bits on ebay. I have been doing well on my mission to save money.
     Don't get me wrong, I haven't been a total angel. There have been a few temptations that I have given into...
       One of these purchases was from one of my favourite Etsy shops, Miss Bumbles. I have quite a few of her wonderful creations and this time I asked for a custom order. 
     I wanted a little version of my cat Ruby. She loves Maltesers, they are one of her favourite things in the world. No she doesn't eat them, I will explain all in another post. I wanted her to be juggling Maltesers. She is also wearing a Malteser themed dress, red the colour of the packet, brown polka dots to represent the sweets themselves and a white ribbon around her waist to represent the colour of the font on the packet.
       The finished result was even better than I had imagined and when the pictures came through I was so excited.

Pictures belong to Miss Bumbles. You can find her Etsy shop here.

     I loved the little touches that Miss Bumbles added to the piece, the little collar. But especially the little tongue sticking out, I thought that was genius. It captures Ruby's cheeky personality completely.

     I was also tempted by another piece in the form of this cute little nanny goat kid. And she made the journey to my house along with the little Ruby Replica.

        Not only do you get gorgeous items from this shop, the service is great too. The lady behind the shop is really nice and helpful. She was very patient and answered all of my questions throughout the custom order process.

     To anyone who has been thinking of buying from this shop, I can't recommend it highly enough. I am already thinking about another custom order.

Quirky Easter Chocolate

         It is a well known fact that I am a chocoholic. I love making my own chocolates but not quite as much as eating the stuff!
     I was in Marks and Spencer the other day looking at their Easter offerings and I have to say I was very impressed.  They have much more than the bog standard Easter eggs. I loved some of it so much, I decided to splurdge.

        It is no surprise that I was drawn to this Hello Kitty London chocolate figure. feline and chocolate, what more could you want? M&S are really going down the British route this year. Hello Kitty is sporting her Union Jack coloured Hundreds and Thousands dress. (I had this last year and the dress was a mixture of pinks purples and yellows.) I like the British touch but I wish they had coloured the bow red to match in with the dress. (Me, picky? Maybe a little).

      I love ducks and I would like to have some of my own one day. So when I saw these they were a must. Their Royal Ducknesses are so cute (almost too cute to eat). They would be perfect for any Diamond Jubilee celebrations, something different for the centre of your table.

       Last but not least is this Great British Breakfast egg. I think this is one of the quirkiest Easter eggs I have ever seen. Who would have thought you could buy an anthropomorphic Easter egg? I think my favourite part is the "baked beans" for hair.

     I spent more than I normally would on chocolate in one go but I really think it's worth it. It is great to see M&S making such an effort with their products when it seems so many other shops have just gave up and no longer try to bring new and exciting things. Even in these hard times, I think people will still spend some money if the products are good enough.
        My only problem now is trying to keep these until Easter...

Halloween Buys

At this time of year I start to get really excited about Halloween. If the weather is on our side this year, we are having a Halloween Garden Party. I have already started my Halloween buying for 2011.

I bought this needle felted black cat by Miss Bumbles from Etsy.

Also this gorgeous Dracula sugar sifter by Lorna Bailey from ebay.

Bought for me as an early Halloween gift from my Mum.

Hopefully these are the first of many Halloween purchases to come this year. What are your plans for Halloween this year.