Sorting for the Holidays...

 I felt bad about getting behind again with posting. I seem to manage to get my Substack musings posted on time, but somehow the blog suffers. I think it might be because I tend to let random thoughts flood the Substack pages, while I feel the need to stick to more of a brief here. Am I right to do that? I don't know. I just know that they feel like two different animals to me and I'm happy with that, so I'm carry on and crave your indulgence!

I opened this blog to find that I started a couple of posts, photos and all, so it seemed daft not to complete them and publish, rather than starting again from scratch. This isn't just laziness or some form of eco-writing recycling, honest. I am going to stick to the focus I wrote about last time. However, there are some mitigating reasons...

Firstly we're off on holiday for a few days next week. That means that although I've done the groundwork on the Etsy shop that I was talking about, it's not the most sensible thing to stock it and then go away so I can't do anything about any orders that I might miraculously get. Secondly, the next area for me to focus on is health. 

I've made a whole load of appointments - feet, high blood pressure review, dentist and was going to pat myself on the back about those, but nearly every one has a knock on which needs exploring further - so they'll keep until after the follow ups and the holiday so I can explore in depth. So for this post and the next I'll use up the drafts I've discovered, which, happily, are linked to the holiday anyway.

To begin with I have finished a bit of making - my creative streak has been on hold of late with one thing and another. It's been confined to watching the Great British Sewing Bee - (OMG I have to try making one of those scrap fabric bags.. I'll let you know if I ever find time to do it. 

Still, here's the project I've finished... hooray.

One of the ladies I play tennis with has a holiday let. She's regularly having to refurbish and refresh the fittings and has of late asked for a hand with recycling the old upholstery into cushions. This time she asked for some cushions, but also wanted a draught excluder too. I've never tried that before so...

Here's the cushion (nothing fancy, just a straightforward envelope design).

And the draught excluder just before I sewed up the final seam.

As it happens it was a real recycling project as we were throwing away a feather pillow that had split and it was the perfect filling for the draught excluder. I think I've just about finished clearing all the loose feathers up - they go everywhere. You can't see them here as I made an inner 'sausage' to contain them within the gingham cover.

With holidays nearing I did have a good look at my make up - not that I've got that much, but some of it is a bit old and really needs disposing of.

It was frightening to see how old some of it was. Not good for my skin or eyes, those items are now in the bin. I don't tend to think of the use by dates on toiletries and cosmetics. I should, I know, and perhaps that explains some of the irritation I've been getting when wearing old mascara!

With a much reduced stock, and all the brushes washed and dried I feel much happier about packing it ready to go away..

Now I'll need to move on to all those mini samples I've got - bet they need sorting too!