Crochet Gingerbread House

Well I managed it! I finished the crochet gingerbread house. Not until Boxing day unfortunately but I'm very proud of it! I went a bit photo happy but I hope you like looking at it!

Such a happy little house!

The tree. Took me about 3 tries to get it started but I got there in the end!

The side. I decided to use regular pom poms instead of crocheting them. Saved a bit of time and I loved how cute they look!

It took me a while to glue it all together. In the end I sewed a lot of it together first so it would hold, especially when connecting the roof to the main house.

Another look at the side.

The back.

And the roof! This was the hardest part and took the longest. The pattern said to do french knots in red but as I had a lot of tiny red poms I thought I'd sew those on instead!

I feel a bit lost now not having a project to work on! Though I did get Twinkie Chan's crochet pattern book for Christmas so I will be making a start on some of her awesome scarves in the new year!

End of Year Sale!

The sale has started early in the shops! I'm having a massive blowout sale at both titchables.etsy.com and titchables.co.uk!

To receive 20% off your entire order, make sure to include the code "2010BLOWOUT" with your order in the coupon section. You will see the discount straight away before you complete your order at both shops!

So go ahead and grab a crafty or handmade bargain for the new year!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! Hope you have a lot of fun, and get everything you wished for! Don't eat (and drink!) too much!

Christmas Baking

My favourite part of Christmas is probably all the food you get to eat. I also love baking at this time of year. I've had a lot of fun planning what I wanted to make.

I love home baked goodies. You get such a huge sense of achievement when you're done and you hear the lovely comments by those enjoying them!

I've still got some cupcakes and biscuits to make tomorrow but here's what I've made so far.

Apple Crumble Cupcakes

Middle: White Chocolate & Bailey's Truffles dipped in dark chocolate

Outside: Cherry Crunchies

I will be sharing the recipes soon! They all came out seriously yummy! Are you making anything for Christmas? 

Posting Days

I thought I would give you guys a heads up on the days I am planning on doing post office runs over the Christmas and New Years Holidays.

You should already be aware that time has run out to get parcels in time for international customers - however, you are very much free to continue to order as they will be dispatched in the same time as before. They just won't arrive before Christmas.

The last posting date for the UK is the 22nd. However, due to the snow I am bumping that up to the 21st.

So here's the days I am willing to go to the post office (I'm sneaking a few days off here and there!):

Monday 21st

Tuesday 22nd

Thursday 23rd

 

Edited: I have decided to have a week off, sorry for any inconvinience but I really could do with a bit of a break.

Normal posting duties will resume on Monday January 3rd.

All the shops will remain open for the duration of the holidays, and I will be responding to all enquiries on most days (except Christmas Day!!).  Thank you guys so much for your continued support for Titchables!

Christmas Makes

Seeing as there are a lot of fab tutorials out there for Christmas makes, I thought I would share some of my favourite's I've come across recently.

Peppermint Swirl Trees by All Sorts

Doily Garland by Candace Todds

Gingerbread House PDF by jcCrafTing

Glitter Village Houses

This one is fantastic, because there's a whole host of different tutorials available in the PDF which you just download. The houses were definitely my favourite though!

I hope to have one more Christmas tutorial of my own up this week for you so be looking for that soon!

Something accomplished

Sorry for the lack of recent blog posts. I've been under the weather, working or been preparing myself for a jolly Christmas so haven't had a lot of time for writing anything. I have some good news today though - I finished my tree skirt!

I really love how it turned out! I changed the colours from the one in Crochet Today and I also adjusted the length a little bit (which worked out well because it would have been too big otherwise!).

I don't very often complete crafty projects for myself on time so I'm really excited that I did it. I can't wait to bring this out every year!

I'm still hoping to finish my crochet gingerbread house. I have a bit left to do on it though so I need to get a crack on with it.

I hope you're all enjoying the run up to Christmas!

New Product: Felt Balls

So let's be honest right now. Who loves felt? I know I do! Ever since I started this venture of selling handmade I have fallen head over heels in LOVE. And ever since I began selling supplies of felt, I have been DESPERATE to locate a felt ball wholesaler. The last few months I have trawled Google with a million different search terms and come up handy everytime.

I was on such a quest a few weeks ago, and nearly giving up after page 20-odd of search pages, I FINALLY found JUST the right one. I immediately whipped off an email of enquiry and within the week I had chosen the colours I wanted and paid, and within another week they were MINE, all MINE.

Best of all, these little lovelies are all handmade and are 100% Fair Trade products - isn't that fab???!

I bought in 20 different colours which complement my felt squares and they are now all available on the Titchables Online Shop! You can buy individual colours in packs of 10 for just £1.20 and I've also put together several mixed themes too! There's also a big grab bag where you can sample all the colours!

I am going to be slowly rolling them out onto Etsy too but I won't be selling the individual colour packs there I'm afraid (at least not at the moment!).

Hope you like them, and as always if you have any questions, feel free to send them my way!!

P.S. If you are in the US/Canada, you need to get your orders in ASAP as tomorrow is the cut off date for getting parcels out in time for Christmas - so don't delay!!

Trains

I seem to spend a large amount of time these days hopping on and off trains. It's definitely a fun way to travel (unless there's snow - the UK apparently can't deal with the white stuff, even just a sprinkling!). Anyway, the other day me and my family took a little day trip to Great Yarmouth (just for somewhere different to go shopping! We were bored of going to Norwich all the time.) and the sun was still rising and there was snow and it was just very pretty.

And the best part? I found a shop (not Starbucks - though we did discover one after!) that did Gingerbread Latte's, my fave!

More sales!

Normally it's custom to mark down Christmas stock after the festivities are over, but this year, I've decided to do it before! All Christmas handmade goodies have reductions and you can check all their new prices out on the etsy shop. This sale is exclusive to etsy for the moment so check it out!

Tonight is the last chance for people in Central & South America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the Middle East to get their orders in for dispatch tomorrow in time for Christmas! I will of course still dispatch to these places after tomorrow but Royal Mail recommends the 6th as the cut off date (of course, that implies still no 100% guarantees unfortunately!).

I'm off out for a day trip tomorrow so the last bit of Christmas shopping will be done. Looking forward to going out as I've been stuck in all day making cakes (no bad thing though, of course!).

Buttons Galore!

These have been on order for a while and they finally arrived this week! Button deliveries always make me happy, but this one was extra happy inducing because these are just so bright and colourful!

Flowers! Available in mixed bags of 50. $$$ and £££

Hearts! Available in mixed bags of 50. $$$ and £££

Tiny Round Buttons! Available in mixed bags of 100. $$$ and £££

I also have bags of 50 of individual colours (red, pink, purple, yellow, green and blue) available exclusively at http://www.titchables.co.uk/!

As if that wasn't enough, I have reduced loads of mixed button bags at both shops. Check out the sale section on etsy or the clearance buttons section at titchables.co.uk!!

Tree is up!

Well my Christmas tree is up! I'm so glad I went with a white tree this year, it's so pretty! If you've got a good eye you'll see all the Titchables ornaments on there, plus my usual jingle beanie babies. I bought some new round baubles from Paperchase too which are perfect!

I spent a couple of days in London to go to a concert (Adam Lambert! Amazing performer!) and I also went to see Harry Potter 7 again but this time we saw it at the imax in Waterloo which was incredible. Loved the film even more the 2nd time. And yes, I also got stuck in the bad weather. The train broke down and I didn't get home until 11pm last night. Luckily, Norwich train station put on taxis for the people who missed their connection (me!) so I got dropped right outside my door. Not bad!