While I've Been Away

Sorry I've not been about much last week, it was my birthday so I had lots of visitors, treats, food and lovely cards! These are one of the beautiful bunch of flowers I was given. The rose petals look like velvet!

Don't you just love it - the inside of a card from knittwits jr. She has drawn me walking Pablo with my wellieboots on!

On the shop front laurabailliedesigns I am still working away on something new and a little bit special. As promised a little look at my work in progress.

I am really enjoying combining the elements of my 2 loves and shops. I am still working on these jewellery pieces and hunting down semi precious gemstones which will compliment each one. What do you think so far?

I'm having a $10 sale in the shop to make room for some of my new designs.

My holiday over

Well that's it, my wonderful holiday has come to an end and I'm back to work tomorrow. I have a commission to do some medical product fitting instructions and a bit of garden design to get stuck into this week. So today I needed to cross some things off my list before normality starts again. I made up all my birthday thank you cards this morning, using some of my favourite flower images of the moment. I got some beautiful flowers for my birthday and took some time today photographing them so that I can work on them later this week.

As I was snapping away today I realised that during this whole holiday I haven't made a thing, I have had loads of ideas, but not sat at this desk and created. I was shocked at first then it dawned on me that some of my favourite things to do are creations of sorts...cooking. And I have done a lot of that this holiday, creating new little concoctions of delight. This amazing bean salad was an adaptation of a receipt I found but was missing lots of the ingredients. So I made it up, and it is yummy and summery. And as a perfect accompaniment my Bo made me amazing wholemeal bread! He has his faults but all is forgiven.

I want to share this with you. I received so many beautiful and thoughtful gifts last week but this little vase or jug is bringing me so much pleasure right now. I love it so much, I love the delicate looking flower and the chunky handle. So it has taken pride of place for me to gaze at and is filled with one of my favourite flowers, freesia.

So, here I am left thinking of what my future holds and what directions I want to go in with my work and creations and try to work out a plan to grow my business to allow me to support myself. All suggestions welcome!

Let me eat cake!

I have just popped in to announce the winner of my "Takin a break" competition and the winner selected from a jar by my bo is .......... Flossie Teacakes! Congratulations!!! Email me your address and I'll pop them in the post to you. Thank you all so much for joining in and sharing your relaxation techniques. I am pleased to say I am feeling so much better now, it took a bit longer than expected but I rested up, ate lovely soup and homemade bread and watched lots of Murder She Wrote. The reason I was late announcing the winner is that it is my 30th birthday today and some little surprises popped up and I decided to extend my break. So I'm off now to eat some of this beautiful cake made by two of our friends J & S. That's one of my favourite things about birthdays, it's ok to eat cake for breakfast! I'll be back very soon to share with you all what I have been up to and creating........