Hats, hats and more hats!

Back when I started this blog, i started selling crochet character hats and baby hats. I mainly sold them as I had small children and at the baby groups and school, people asked about the hats I had made for my children and wanted to buy them, so for a couple of years I was very busy making and selling hats. When I went back to work full-time I didn't have the time anymore and just made things for the kids. 

All that changed when just before Halloween Fred asked for a ghost hat, which I made and then Alex wanted one so I made him a pumpkin hat. It had been a while since I had made hats as we now have a huge bag full and they pick which ever they want to wear. But people started asking where the kids got the Halloween hats from and because of lockdown and me working from home, I had a bit more time on my hands, along with Molly wanting to make things to sell, so I decided to restart, well start posting again on the makings from the madhouse fb page and start selling again. I said to Molly that it would be a good opportunity to make some money to put towards decorating our craft shed (more of that in another post!)

So we did and on 1st November, we started selling hats again. After some research knitted beanies were our first products along with face masks and scrunchies. I soon had the bug again for character hats and started getting custom orders which was great and gave me the opportunity to get creative again. 

Winter Berries Jumper

The first jumper i have ever made for myself and I love it, its been my christmas jumper this year. 

I do really enjoy making these top down jumpers, usually they are for the kids but this year I had to make one for myself 😀

Christmas 2020

Merry Christmas 🎅 

I hope everyone has had a great Christmas.

I think this has been the most relaxed Christmas I have had in years and looking back I realised that this year we haven't had the December rush  with 4 children that a lot of Christmas fairs, plays, Carol services, various dressing up days, and events. I think this has made a huge difference to us and instead we have done more baking, crafting and playing games in the run up to Christmas. Working from home has been another added bonus towards a more relaxed Christmas.

I had time to make them advent calenders and Christmas eve boxes and even bought matching pajamas for the first time, probably with the money that working from home has saved us this year!

I discovered that my phone camera has a timer, so managed a snap of us all on Christmas eve.

t his plate we made with a £1 plate from poundland and some sharpies and will be a used for years to come

Me and Paul ha ing a drink and eating left over buffet from our Christmas eve afternoon tea, my parents came round for.

I even cooked the turkey and gammon as well as prepared all the veg on Christmas eve,  so I had even less to do on the day.

We played some games including heads and tails before the kids decided at 8.42pm they were extremely tired, including the teen, and went to bed 😆

Christmas morning arrived and we got up at 7am! 

Paul bought me a gorgeous ring

We had dinner at home with my parents,  but I didn't take any pictures, was just living in the moment and completely forgot. Just a relaxing peaceful Christmas 🎄 

Clay Gingerbread houses

Morning, Christmas is creeping closer and we are getting into the spirit over here at the madhouse. We started doing Weekley craft night,mainly so that the kids know when we will be doing crafts all together and I can work on my crafts at other times as so often as soon as I go in the craft shed, they all wander in to see what they can make and I don't get much done. So now we have craft night once a week and do a specific craft and if they haven't finished something they  an come in and work on it on other nights or do something else that they can do with out me needing to help all the time. Its worked out really well and the kids are enjoying it.

We started the craft club a few weeks ago with clay gingerbread houses, which once dry they decorated and now take pride of place with fake tealights in on our window sill that is becoming like a Christmas village. Next time is Christmas knomes.

Autumn 🍂

Well its nearly Christmas time! 

Since the kids went back to school in September we have had at least one at home at any one time, sometimes two and even three! Touch wood none of us have had covid, but if someone in a class or year group bubble gets it everyone is sent home to isolate. Plus we have all had various colds and diffrent seasonal illnesses. But fingers crossed we are back to normal now.

The plus of having a couple of kids at a time at home means the older ones can help the younger with school work as I still work full time from home.

I made there advent calenders again this year, but bought these cute little bags to save wrapping nearly 100 treats, this was a game changer, an hour or so and I was done.

With not going out, we didn't get any children in need clothes,  so we made our own with transfer sheets and paint

Decorations started going up, just a few and a bit early.

We made chocolate apples for bonfire night 

Molly and me made a cake for my mums birthday, which was before lockdown 2

And I started making some chocolate orange covers for christmas

We had a socially distanced tram ride on the heritage trams to see the illuminations 

Churchtown Pub Walk