Little Pea Green & the Twitter Baby Follower Challenge Thingy

Snappy title, I know!

Okay so I have 97 followers on Twitter & if I reach 100 before the baby gets here I shall be offering an exclusive 10% discount to said lovely followers on all the items in my Etsy shop, Little Pea Green. The more followers I get before the day of arrival, the more discount I will offer. For example if my baby takes it's time & I have 110 followers, I'll offer 11% discount. If I have over 120 followers then it'll be 12% & so on & so forth. The more the merrier!

It's all handmade by me, just lovely little affordable & unique things for wee ones.

Of course, when the baby arrives the shop will be on vacation for a week or so while we get settled but the discount code will be valid for one month from the day I reopen. I shall also be looking to replenish the stock of the shop when we've got a nice routine going (a girl can dream)!

I aim to post out well within a week - if I am too buried in nappies then I'll of course let you know this!

So, get following on Twitter @PeaGreenGwin & get your 10% off, as well as making me look really cool infront of my newborn child (because every baby cares about how many Twitter followers it's mum has!)

I bloody love Christmas me - though not usually in October!

Today, after three hours of travelling on trains (more on that & the rude commuters of Britain later), I finally have got round to making some Christmas bits & bobs. I have spent the last hour or so snipping & sewing & it feels good! (With the exception of an aching back - so blog & dinner break happening now!)

Here's a quick sneak peek at what kind of things I'll be making. Goodness knows if I'll sell anything - craft fair tomorrow & I plan on popping some of these lovelies on the Little Pea Green Etsy Shop - but if not it'll save me making more for our own tree!

Last week I was sat in our living room, minding my own business when I suddenly got a subtle sniff of something like a pine scent. I think it was the faint aroma coming from a little lavender bag which Daughter had found & claimed as her own for a while but was now stuffed down the back of the sofa & forgotten, but my brain was obviously in a jovial mood & so interpreted this as a whiff of festivity. I became overwhelmingly excited about the impending arrival of winter & the festive season. I cannot wait to see the living room transformed with bunting & decorations (I am quite the traditionalist so lots of rustic reds, greens & golds); for the scent of the tree & the excitement as the presents build up beneath it; for the cursing every time someone kneels down & gets pine needles angrily poked into their knees; for an open fire roaring during the day & then it's embers gently roasting chestnuts on an evening; to buy pointless & rich foods & to gorge on them with absolutely no shame, just pure revelry, swilling it all down with a slug of Irish cream liqueur or a hot coffee cheekily spiked with a shot of brandy, whatever the time of day.

I could go on forever & ever about the best bits of Christmas but, this year, the thing I cannot wait to have our brand new family in the midst of all this toasty-warmth & cosiness.

I bloody love Christmas, me. Even the cheesy songs.

P.S. - apologies for getting so excited so soon, I don't usually do such silly things but I am due to have a baby in one month & as I am prescribing myself one month of focusing on nothing but the baby & sleep everything like this is getting pushed forward one month, so I am living as though it were the 17th November! Therefore I find this festive fanaticism is entirely justified!

So much to say, such little ability to make sense.

Well hello y'all!

It's Friday the 9th of September & finally we have an internet connection!

I've been re-reading the last few posts & all though it is not even two months gone it seems like an entirely different lifetime. So much has changed. So much is still changing & I'm struggling to keep up!

Presently, I am feeling an enormous sense of excitement & have decided to spend an evening to try & straighten out the blog, the Etsy shop & the facebook pages in accordance with my change in focus.

Last night was devoted to making goodies from felt, including owl, cat & monster egg cosies as well as felt softies & I am currently hugely enthused with creating a range of handmade gifts especially for children & babies. In between (or rather in order to avoid) unpacking & painting rooms & doing trivial things such as washing up & keeping the house in the fashion that a good wife should I have been making things such as bunting & Christmas decorations (for our own Christmas tree rather than for sale) & so have had the sewing machine out, dusted off & in action!

There is so much to say, blog-readers, & I shall try to say it in a way that makes sense but I am fit to burst at the moment.

I am so happy to be back & entirely submerged in the flow of this creativity & I don't think I can quite get all the ideas & thoughts from my brain into blog form.

I should also say that apart from an ill two weeks last week & the one before, all is well with my health & more importantly TBC's health. I am round & I waddle but I am told that my bump is "compact" & "petite".

Pregnancy is still hard work - with daughter it was a complete breeze in comparison - but I am looking forward to filling my spare time with more making & sewing & biscuit eating. I haven't done much writing in the past few months, instead I have been pouring all energy into other forms of art but I hope to get back into it now. & to start using correct grammar & make some vague sense.

In brief - this weekend I am beginning to launch a new branch of Our Pea Green Pod, which is especially for children & babies & is called Little Pea Green.

Find Little Pea Green on facebook here
& on Etsy here.

It is still very much under construction. I have got many more products made but I haven't put them up due to being at work & having misplaced the USB cable for my camera & being slightly too lazy to begin a hunt this evening. 

You can still find Our Pea Green Pod - which will still be stocking all my random bits & bats - on facebook here
& on Etsy here.

I cannot promise organisation or sense on any of these pages but please, as always, bear with me & I hope that by the end of the week it will all make a little more sense & there will be things to capture your interest.

I will try & get my technical head on this evening & update all the links on this blog.

Or I might just sit & chat to friends whilst drinking tea & eating biscuits. I really like biscuits at the moment.

The Last Night

Tonight my beautiful Daughter & I bathed together.

For some reason, one which entirely escapes me, we have never before had a bath together.

I remember that as a child always I would frequently have baths with my mum. I suppose I thought nothing of it at the time but I realise that it really was a relaxing & natural way to bond. There is something about water that is so soothing, so healing. I realise that bathing seems to be a recurring theme these days - see Contentment - so I'll try & keep the talk of nakedness to a minimum from now on.


After we were dry we got into our pyjamas & went to the chip shop. As you'd expect, we got quite a lot of funny looks, me in bright pink leggings, complete with vivid green JLS hoody (yup, JLS the crap band) & daughter in her stripey pyjamas nicely matched with wellies & wet hair, but who gives a damn! Tomorrow we shan't live here!

Fish & chips were delicious, as expected & then a story was had & currently my little babe is curled up in my bed, or rather on my mattress as I took down her bed & my bedframe earlier today.

There is something entirely fulfilling about the feeling you get when you get out your [enormous] toolkit - steady now - & take something intricate to pieces, knowing that you are fully capable of putting it back together again.

I'm the kind of girl who does not need a man for any of the DIY related things. I'm practical & proud.

So what do I need a man for? Security? Love? Sex?

All of the above, I guess, but being the fully capable type of girl I am still not 100% comfortable with sharing my time. It's something I'll have to get used to, something I have little choice in now - the deed is done. having said that, this is all I've ever wanted & I am excited, I just didn't want it quite so soon.

Now that I re-read, I'd like to add that I am certainly not a fully capable type of girl in an all-round sense. I am fully capable in the technical/practical sense, but emotionally I guess, as we all are, I'm a a little bit fucked up & it's fair to say I function better when I'm loved. I suppose, then, that means I'm covered in all aspects now.

I don't know. I don't have the answers to how it will pan out or whether this will be exactly what I need. It feels scary, but at the same time it feels right. More right than any decision of this sort I've ever made in the past & that can only be a good thing, can't it?

All I do know it that I'm looking forward to curling up with my sleeping beauty tonight, just the two of us, for the last time. I know that I'm looking forward to pledging one half of my bed to my wonderful man tomorrow evening & I'm looking forward to him sharing it with me for the forseeable future. I'm looking forward to it being just the four of us. I'm looking forward to love.

I'm not, however, looking forward to painstakingly unpacking these & all their friends:

I should probably apologise in advance as we shan't have internet for at least 3 weeks. I think that I may go crazy, but apart from my loss of sanity it means that the Etsy shop shall be on vacation & I shan't be blogging for some time.

On my return I hope to have miraculously created a whole shop full of wonderful items, but something tells me that between unpacking, decorating the childrens' bedrooms & the arty commitments that I have all ready signed up for (an art exhibition & some pieces for the cafe, amongst other things) that wonders should not come so easily!

In the mean time, I wish you all well.

Yours, Gwin.

Packing, Procrastination & Apprehension.

Today, I shall mainly be packing. That is, whenever I am not on a tea/blog/procrastination/wee (not meaning to be vulgar but it's a joy of pregnancy) break.

I have, however, had two small set backs. The first is that I've used half my previously-thought-to-be-adequate supply of boxes in the kitchen alone, & that does not even include half the crockery & cutlery I am leaving until the final hour to pack, nor the crap that I can't be bothered to wash up (the latter probably counting for about a third of my kitchenware).

So, currently my kitchen looks like this:

My second set back is that being five months pregnant makes it increasingly difficult to move, let alone lift, heavy objects. If you are a shrewd observer you may have noted the four heavy-looking items right in the middle of my kitchen floor. Appearances are not deceptive & alas they are heavy & indeed they are stuck there. The man is not due around until next week so I'm facing a weekend whereby the simple acts of getting daughter's cereal or cooking risotto are going to become stealth missions of great peril (particularly the half-awake morning parts) made even more treacherous to navigate given my current heffer-like state.

When I'd got quite fed up of inky-black hands & deciding which junk to keep & which junk to palm off on some poor unsuspecting friend, who once politely expressed some vaguely-positive opinion of said junk, I decided that I should probably let you know about the latest additions to the very, very slowly but sort of surely expanding bits & bobs on the Etsy shop. I also decided that I should try to use more full stops & apologise for that last sentence!

Here are the bobs:

You've probably seen the Green Love Owl (#1) before, but there's also Fiery Love Owl (#2) & Love Cat (#1) Daughter is still rather fond of these so I'll have to do something nice for her new bedroom.

I still can't quite believe that I only have three more full days left to pack - we don't move for a week but the rest of my time is full with work & other errands - nor can I believe that when we are all moved in & settled that a couple of months down the line we'll have a new addition to our only just newly formed family. I'm just coming to grips with the idea of sharing my time again, & when, between nappies, man, toys & housework will I fit in art & blogging & a quiet cup of Ovaltine? Well, to be fairly honest I'll probably fit the nicer things in where I should be fitting the housework but let's hope some miracle occurs & I somehow transform into a goddess of the domestic variety.

The thing that I feel most apprehensive about is not being the bread-winner, or the provider. Sure, I'll work until 6 weeks before The Big Day, but only part time. I shall struggle to make half the rent. I've struggled before but never have I been in a position where the struggle isn't needed - I won't have to pay half the rent, though of course I'll put in all I can. Never have I had someone take the reigns in that respect & that scares the crap out of me.

Of course, I am more than grateful, but that makes it no less scary. I've allocated myself the job of chief nest-maker which you may think is given, but last time I was bread-winner, nest-maker & nappy-changer, amongst other things. I find it difficult to feel satisfied that I am putting enough in - but is that because I'm used to being the only source of input? I feel simultaneously lucky & guilty. Not that my man makes me feel any guilt, quite the opposite, but because it's just such a shift in the way I'm used to living.

Maybe I'll quite like the lady-of-leisure lifestyle. I will certainly try to enjoy it & make the most of the valuable time I spend with the children. That, of course is the most precious reward I could get.


I guess the only thing to do is sell more art.

Anyone?

Did a little dance; Made a little Love[Owl]...

This week, besides over-eager consumption of Ovaltine, we have been trying to spend time - real meaningful time. Therefore packing has taken a back seat (where I expect it to stay until about two evenings before we're due to move when I will be frantically throwing random objects into unsuitable containers) & instead we have had some lovely activities on the go.

I finished my previous job on Thursday & all though I have been a little busier than usual with preparation for the opening of the new/old cafe that I shall be working at (new/old because I worked there for the previous owner who also happens to be a wonderful friend too), it really has felt blissful to have a weekend all to ourselves.

On Thursday I got all too excited about the choice of coffee for the new cafe (celebratory dancing & a wide grin in anticipation of a coffee tasting on Monday - though I will have to spit so as not to create a hyper child!).

On Friday I made a little Love Owl (#1)

Daughter was quite taken with him, but alas he was purposefully made to sell ~ here ~ so we decided that we should make our own, for her to treasure.

I think that I shall certainly treasure him in future - he's a joint effort, Mummy did the outline & Daughter chose her colours & [with a little guidance & tips on how not to brutally destroy a paint brush] gave them to him. She then, of course, signed her mark - a backwards 'E', followed by a forwards 'E' (clearly done on-purpose...) - & I duly dated it 2011 & made note of her being age 3. Certain to say there was much pride from both of us.

The weekend held a trip so see some lesser-seen family & some much appreciated fish & chips, gobbled with greedy delight in the perfect warmth of Friday evening sunshine.

There was shopping on Saturday... a pram was chosen... very exciting... & today, well today we decadently layed in until our stomachs decided that it was time for pancakes (crepes) & later took an amble in our wellies to get much-needed supplies for yet another indoor picnic.

This evening consisted of me taking apart of my coffee grinder. I now have rather oily hands & a lovely aroma but best of all the cleanest coffee grinder in all of the North East of England at the very least!

This weekend was one of the loveliest & I feel more than lucky that a lot of times recently have been some of the loveliest.

My man is strong & loving; My daughter is short, perfectly-formed & cherished; My bump is petite, all in front & contains a healthy babe. How could I be more blessed?

Lovely things.

It's all about the simple pleasures:

Milky, malty, cocoaey goodness.

A pregnancy comforter - never before in my life have I enjoyed a cup of Ovaltine but there was a sachet in my bag-of-free-crap that they palm off on you when pregnant & lo & behold...addicted! That's marketing for you!

Armadillo. He is what he is.

Cheese.

On toast.

Fingers.

Yum.

Creation

This week has felt like a creative & productive one.

There have been beginnings.

It all started with this chap...

I love working in pen & ink. There is something that is so bold yet fine about the detail. Cross-hatching & seemingly random strokes. Bold solid lines aside empty spaces. Black & white. All combine to make something almost abstract but surprisingly real.

Then, there was a shop. It's begun & I feel excited that it could be the creative outlet I crave. Something to fill the quiet evenings whilst the children are (we hope) soundly asleep in their beds. Something that calms & hopefully, something that is productive. Artistically fulfilling.

There is a lot of 'hope' in my words.

We shall see where it takes us, if anywhere. At the very least it is therapy. Thank goodness.

Here we are ~ on Etsy & on Facebook

We are quite learning to walk before we can run.

Bear with us.