Manic Kitty

A picturey post, because I've been uploading things to Flickr, but not mentioning them here.

First we have pictures of what I got in my first ever Craftster swap, which was a US<->UK swap.

My partner was Raindrops and she sent me some great stuff. I can't remember everything I asked for because I forgot to save the email, but I can't think of anything that she missed. Roughly clockwise from the left we have:
- Local college newpapers
- Darth Vader Chupa Chup thing who raises his sword in vengence
- Beeeeads
- A box with a metal butterfly in the top... she asked if I collected anything :)
- Stripey fabric with flowers
- Stripey fabric that everything is stood on
- A ball of orange yarn
- Peeps (I finally know what they are, marshmallows coated in sugar, but I daren't eat them)
- Mod Podge (It is just watered down PVA)
- A grow your own farm sponge kit
- Hershey Kisses
- 12 packets of Kool-Aid (I'm going to have a dyeing frenzy and make the house smell sickly sweet)
- Knitting Notelets
- A Light up American Flag
- Sharpies I deinitely asked for these, they're great, I've used them loads already, and I'm hiding them from Porl.
- A Crafty Girl tin of mints (which is so cool)

Here's some close up's of the fabric, and the "Crafty Girl" Tin.

Hopefully Raindrops should receive her parcel in the next couple of days, and I can post pictures of what I sent. I had great fun buying all the stuff, I think it might actually be more fun shopping for someone else than for me.

The grow your own farm kit seems to have grown me a Gonzo. Either that, or he's decided he wants to join in this swapping lark. I'll try to explain to him about planes, quarentine and customs, and I suspect he might change his mind.

Next pictures of my entry for round 3 of Craft Idol. I decided that as I'd done 2 different crafts for the first 2 rounds I'd try to do a different craft for each round. The theme was "Party Time" and you had to tie it in to a decade in the last century. I chose 1920's and did a lino cutting of Noel Coward.

I was quite please with the lino cut (even though it confuses the scanner and indents the raised areas), but I ended up rushing to do the finished card and I'm not happy with it. It's not 1920's in the slightest. I wanted to do a nice Art Nouveau border, and I should have done it in black and white, far more 1920's than blue.
Oh well, serves me right for leaving everything till the last minute.

We haven't heard from our little man today, he said he'd call as soon as he had the part for the boiler, but I'll be phoning him tomorrow to check he is coming back.
I'm so cold! The house is so exposed, and gets very little sunlight, so this morning when it was raining and I was shivering under my blanket I decided that the gas fire had to be lit.
Even during winter it has to be an exceptionally cold day before I resort to lighting the gas fire, but 4 days with no heating meant I needed to take the chill off the house.
Now I'm going to bed. It's warm there.