Day vs Night - the struggle

As many may know, I am a teacher by day and a sewer by night. Most of the time my two lives don't cross over into each other's time. I very work hard during the day to clear up all my work so I can sew at night. At the moment when I really need and want to sew I can't as I am marking coursework to deadline.

What makes this extra frustrating is that I have just heard that I have been accepted for Mount Stewart Garden and Craft fair on 16th & 17th May (yipee), which is just over 6 weeks away. Now I have been making bags in preparation of the chance I might get to go but fortunately/unfortunately they have been selling quite well online in my shop. I am not sure whether this makes me happy :o) or sad :0( One thing I do know is there will be smoke coming from my sewing machine over the next couple of weeks. Well better go and finish marking GRRRRRRRH

A Review - a new trend?

I don't usually do reviews, but I often find really interesting shops and sites so I thought I would start to share these with you occasionally. So I will start with Kitty and Polly.

These guys are based locally here in Northern Ireland and they have sourced some lovely items here at home and from the UK.

They are also offering 15% of if you sign up to their newsletter. Pop in and have a look.

Well done Etsy

As an Etsy dweller I often have the odd grumble, but the one that really bugged me was not being able to pay my bill via PayPal. The fabulous Etsy just emailed me to say I can now do this. Yippee. Love you etsy.

New Purchase 2

I'm going to tell you all a secret - I am a closet petrol head (a gear head to my American friends). I just love cars, specifically Mini's, and last night I collected my new baby, my 4th mini.

I went from this one

To this one.....yum

The story behind this transition goes back about 19 months. I usually change my car every 2 years and 19months ago I arrived at the mini dealer to pick up my new car, and as we walked in I murmured to my husband look at the horrible colour of that car, who would buy a car that colour. The salesman then showed me to my new car and it appeared it was I who had bought it. It did not look anything like the colour I had picked. I think everyone thought I would get over it, so I got the roof painted silver and it improved but never got good, and for me, my car has to be good.

My husband suggested I get rid of it at 6 months, but I felt I had to stick by my decision. At the end of January this year I had, had enough and went and picked a new one and after a 7 week wait it arrived.

This is the car I have wanted for quite a while, but there was always other things I need to use my money for. This month sees me making my last student loan payment and the end of debt, so I thought either now or never, what else would I do with my money. I won't bore you with too much detail, enough to say, it's a Mini Cooper S and it goes very fast - not that I break the speed limit :o)

I walked around today with a big smile on my face and my mum just keep saying, "just sell a few more handbags and you're be no worse off" which amuses me but then I think why not.

New Purchases 1 - Pogo

I'm afraid I've went a little mad over the past few weeks when it has come to making new purchases.

In the middle of last week one some of these purchases arrived. My husband and I are gadget freaks, we love new and fun technology, so on complete impulse I clicked "add to cart" on this.

It is a wireless, portable photo printer, which allows you to send pictures from your mobile to it. It comes is pink as well and I have seen it advertised in red, but not for sale yet. It uses zink paper, which means there is no ink cartridges to buy and the paper is embedded with crystals to allow the colour to come out. When the pictures come out they are dry and pretty indestructible. When we printed the first one I dipped it into a cup of coffee (to my other 1/2's horror) to see just how indestructible it was. It takes just 60 seconds from deciding to send until it has finished printing. The printer also allows pictures to be sent directly from your camera via a picbridge cable or from a laptop with a bluetooth dongle.

When I read up on it the reviews talked about picture quality, but to be honest if the pictures are taken in good light with a decent camera they come out ok, certainly no worse than one of the old Polaroid cameras. All in all pretty cool and if you can get it for less than £50 (~$70) then it's worth a buy for fun. Of course what I really want is

Be still my beating heart. This is a 5MP TOMY xia TIP-521 Digital Camera with integrated printer, also using Zink paper. Unfortunately this baby is still only available in Japan, so I will have to wait a bit longer.

Dark Days and Rays of Sunshine

The past few weeks have been a bit of a mixed bag. There have been great days and sad days. Sometimes one forgets to be appreciative of things around us; great friends being the main one. Life has been going on and I will be back soon with some new thoughts, but for the time being I thought I would just touch base.