Dobby's first 24 hours

Yesterday we picked up our dog from the rescue :-) We've been through lots of ideas for names since meeting him, and finally decided upon 'Dobby' (he has enormous ears, just like the house elf in Harry Potter) while travelling to collect him. He's the first dog we've ever owned ourselves and, although he's 7 months old, he;s never been trained and has probably never been in a house or seen humans eat before. He's extremely good at our meal times, and didn't whine at all at night. We've only had a few wees to mop up from the carpets too. From a scrapbooking point of view, the dull days and his mostly black fur are proving a photography challenge. I think it'll be some time before I can disappear off into the craft room for a play anyway - not sure whether all my friends and relatives will be getting a handmade Christmas card this year!

Baubles, Blue Cross, beads, and blocked up noses

This week has been a busy one, with preparation for two demos and the arrival of our doggy.

The first demo was to a retirement club near where my parents live in Essex. A few of the club members are crafters, but most aren't, so I always try to choose things that will be interesting to watch, can be done with minimal equipment, but can be made a bit more complicated for people with crafting supplies. So, I showed ways to jazz up the cheap and cheerful baubles you get in big boxes from places like Wilkinson, as that's practical, economical, and would be fun to do with even quite young grandchildren. I had great fun playing with glitter and flock while I was preparing for the demo, and I think everyone enjoyed it on the day. Photos to follow soon.

Blue Cross confirmed on Wednesday that our house and garden are OK, so we can have the lovely doggy we chose last week :-))) So, while I was in Essex, I visited a big pet store that friends had recommended - Kingstown, near Billericay. They were really helpful, and I came away will all the urgent things we need for the doggy - crate, food, lead, brush etc. All we need now is the doggy! Oh, and a name - top of the list at the moment are Pip and Dobby (he does have *very* big ears!).

The second demo of the week was a jewellery demo at the Paper Mill in Spalding, and it should have been today. Unfortunately, this is where we bring in the last topic in the title. I've been fighting off Adam's cold all week, but it finally won on Thursday evening. Assuming anyone would want to come close enough to a sneezing, coughing demonstrator to see the detail of how to make jewellery, leaning over beads with a runny nose didn't seem a great idea! Nobody else was available to demo in my place, so the shop manager decided to postpone, rather than have me come with lurgy. This was the first time in over 120 demos that I've ever had to cancel. At least I have lots of samples ready for the rescheduled demo :-)

Doggy doggy doggy!!!

What I did today may not seem to have a link to crafting, but it's going to give me a whole new area of scrapbooking to explore, so I reckon it deserves a blog post :-)

Both our parents have doggies, but we've never felt grown up enough to have one of our own. Recently though, we dog-sat a friend's labrador for a couple of weeks, and have been in doggy-withdrawal ever since he went home. We've see-sawed between puppy and rescue dog for a while, but today managed a great compromise. On a trip to the Blue Cross centre at Lewknor we met this beautiful bouncy 7 month old collie cross, rescued from Ireland. We've reserved him, and will be spending the next few days dog proofing our house and garden ready for our interview. Fingers crossed we'll pick him up soon!

My first jewellery project of the week :-)

Over on the do crafts website one of my designs has been chosen as the jewellery 'project of the week', so I'm quite a happy bunny. Here's what I made, if you'd like to leave me some feedback, or have a go at the project yourself, the instructions are here.

When you get behind...

... the thought of catching up is a bit daunting! So, here's a very brief summary of my summery activities.

I spent a lot of it yomping around the countryside and pushing old aeroplanes at the Shuttleworth Collection airshows. Thanks to the windy weather, too little of it was spent flying in our microlight though :-(

Craftwise, I've discovered a whole new obsession: jewellery making. I had some training for this a while ago at do crafts' HQ, but didn't really get hooked until I started to prepare for my first event. One of my favourite things about it is that it's so portable and, as no paper is involved, you can even do it in the garden! Summer crafting is always a bit unsettling for me: I know that, when the days are short and cold, I'll wish I'd spent every minute of lovely weather outdoors. Well, now I can satisfy my urge to craft without sacrificing my vitamin D input. Just don't drop any beads :-)

Bringing myself up to date - I made it to my first ever NEC public craft show on Friday. It was great to look round, and I had a go at two new crafts - decopatch and silk painting. I can see silk painting becoming a bit of an obsession too...

That's it for now, back to crafting!