Brrrrrr - it's cold out there!

So why not get some lovely handmade winter warmers.....I've just ordered a pair of these fab leggings from Norwegian Wood 

 

Love the pom pom neck warmers from Silky Prudence 

 

A winter cowl/ cape will almost certainly be a new year purchase, from love and knit 

 

And if any of you have checked out the Eden Rose Lifestyle christmas giveaways (which by the way are open for another couple of days if you're quick!) you'll see that along with a pair of Bbel earrings, you can also win one of these lovely hats from Knitwillo 

 

She also makes the most adorable baby slippers, and although I don't have anyone small enough to buy these for right now, I've got my eye on them for forthcoming deliveries!  Love the 'grandpa slippers'

And these beautiful rose slippers

 

All available in her shop

Bust and a New Zine of the Week

The Bust Craftacular was as fun as ever - I had a stall next to the brilliant Sugar Paper Zine.  I had bought one of the Sugar Paper Zines a while ago so was excited to see there were new editions out!

They are packed full of great crafty things to make and do, recipes and a little project of your own to start straight away

Visit their myspace page at Sugar Paper Zine or visit their Shop to get your copy, with 20 things to make and do for the amazing price of 2 pounds!!

This is issue number 4 and it comes with so many great things to do, including - make your own velvet art, snow globe, recipes, quizzes, colouring in, vinyl bowls, craftivism, knitting, Rosie Riveter cross stitch pattern and much more - comes with a free pack of felt tips!

Great stocking filler, will keep your friend / sister / brother / parent happy for hours!

Wish List

You can't go wrong with anything from my favourite t-shirt designer, Model Citizen

 

                                          

This would keep me busy on christmas day - a ready to stitch eco-tote, before

and after

The bag is a collaboration between Model Citizen and Sublime Stitching - love it!

More Colours Coming Soon!

My favourite mirror necklace is now available in beautiful shades of red, purple, pink and blue!

Here is a little taster of what's to come - will upload to the shop shortly!

And this is the new feather necklace, it sits on the side on a shorter length chain so will peep above any high necklines.

The original Feather Necklace - this one is also in the shop, a larger feather on a slightly longer chain, goes well with a lower neckline.

Treehomes

As well as being at the fantastic Bust Craftacular this Saturday, Bbel will also have a stall at the Christmas Fair in the beautiful Hillier Gardens in Hampshire.  The Sir Harold Hillier Gardens are  just outside Romsey and the Christmas Fair is on from Saturday 12 December to Monday 21 December, 10am to 4pm each day.

'Plants of Current Interest' in the Gardens (they will give you a map showing all of these and more when you visit)



 

Maylus Crittenden - the good old British Crab Apple - good for jams, wines and pies, yum

Euonymus alatus or ‘Burning Bush’, when the leaves have fallen off, they reveal this beautiful winged bark.

I manage to visit the gardens several times each year, and it was this summer that I discovered their treehouse.  From that moment, I have been designing in my head the home that I will be building in my perfect tree. 

I quite fancy having the quick escape routes at the back - never know when you may need to abseil out of your house.

The company that designed and built it, Blue Forest have an amazing gallery of treehouses including this sweet thatched roof

And if I ever get really ambitious, or just want to house another 20 people I guess I could try one of these...the largest treehouse in the world at Alnwick Gardens
 

Goodbye Christmas Market...and daily dose of mulled wine, belgian waffles, devon fudge (damn, why was that sweet stall so close by)

We've just finished our last day in our alpine chalet - we had a fantastic time, although we probably sampled too much of the refreshments on offer.  Thankfully I found the hot, spiced apple juice so I didn't always have to warm up with mulled wine.  If you're planning a visit to the Market over the next couple of weeks, I did manage to work out that the gluhwein was the best out of the three mulled wines on offer (we were sure there was a swig or two of brandy in that one) and that the belgian waffles with hot chocolate sauce were the breakfast food to start your 8 hour stint on.  I liked to think that the cream I added to mine was kind of equivalent to the milk I would put on my cereal.

Our fabulous little chalet.

Note the warm glow in the top left of the photo - we purchased three of these lights on the first day, concerned that our chalet wasn't light enough.  The lights were very strong wattage and not only lit our jewellery up rather nicely but also half of the cathedral behind us.  A concerned neighbour noted 'I didn't realise you could use outdoor lights inside'  hmmmm, neither did we -hadn't quite clocked that we had purchased football stadium lights, give quite a nice glow though don't you think.

Oh, so whilst I'm on the subject of the Christmas Market, I would like to mention some of the lovely stallholders we met - potters, knitters, glass fusers, people who sew really cute things - here are some of their wares....

Jug and bowl by Caroline Green

Pretty ceramic spoons by Penny Spooner (!) She does make other things apart from spoons too - although at the time of writing both their shops are looking a little bare - Caroline assured me she would be uploading some more of her lovely white ceramics shortly.

Well, actually I should have said here are some of the wares by the potters since no-one else seems to have a website at the moment- that's fine though, I'll take photos of some of the things I bought and show them off here soon....

New Bird Necklace

I've been working on a new necklace - two black headed gulls (not sure if that's obvious when they're silhouetted in silver!) - I've put it on much longer chains than the usual and it really works - it's proven very popular at the christmas market so will be busy making some more over the weekend! 

Check out the BBel Folksy Shop shortly!

Zine of the Week

I like zines a lot. I like small, pocket sized ones and I like ones that are not really about much but still offer a few hours of contemplation or absent minded flicking through or make me smile a bit.

Statistical Analysis of the Things That Don't Matter and Everything Else

Like this zine. It's very small and not very long, but lots of graphs and pie charts to look at so totally worth it.

Sarah McNeil is the author. She states 'Silly and sincere graphs of different things that happen and are discovered and recorded from everyday life. It is important to break down the types of birds in the city into a pie chart (pigeons win by the way), or an x,y graph of the consistence of the apple juice stain on my shirt etc. Very important.'

Bust Craftacular!

Bbel will be at the Bust Craftacular on 12th December - come and say hi!  The last two have been so much fun, this one will be bigger than ever - really looking forward to it!

Heartbreaker

New designs I have just been working on....coming soon to the Bbel shop,

The Heartbreaker Necklace

This is a lariat style necklace, there is no clasp and the arrow simply pierces the heart and hangs low on the chest.

Lightening Earrings

I will hopefully get this uploaded to the shop tomorrow!

Wishlist

Is it too early for my christmas wish list? I think not - too many nice things out there, I need to start making a note!

First on the list, a new winter coat...or cape since I spotted this one from yystudio

All their clothes are custom made to order - love this one too...

Second on the list is a beautiful hat and one of these from Terry Graziano would definitely do

All hats are handcrafted and made with eco friendly mill-end surplus fabrics, visit her shop here

Thirdly, and perhaps these should be number one since am in dire need of some winter boots - especically ones made from recycled plastic bags.

Botas Dacca by Camila Labra, see her blog here.

Alpine Food and Ice Skating!

Only one week to go until the Bbel alpine chalet is open and ready for business! This year, Bbel will be at the Christmas Market held in the inner close at Winchester Cathedral for ten days from 27 November to 6 December.

Come along and check out chalet 46 'British Designers' - I will be sharing the chalet with the fabulous Kylie Malcolm and Tribe Designs so there will be lots of beautiful handmade clothes, bags, jewellery and homewares -I'll post some photos up next week when we're up and running!  There will be 90 chalets, lots of food and an ice skating rink! Open Sun - Wed 10 - 6 and Thurs - Sat 10 - 8.

     

                       

And whilst you're shopping you can sip on mulled wine and sample the Alpine menu that Winchester favourite The Vine pub will be offering.  I'm thinking it will definitely be necessary to eat quite a lot and stay warm with spiced wine and cider throughout the ten days - it's the only way to keep out the cold.

We're all booked in for a skating session on the last day - I'm hoping I'll look as upright as these people, although I think there is someone on the left of the shot that may have crashed.

                                  

Please come along and say hi!

 

Woodland Wonders

One of the latest designs in the Bbel collection, the fox stole, brings a bit of animal friendly glamour to the other forest and woodland inspired necklaces. This one has been hand cut in sterling silver and hung on a 1 metre long sterling silver chain - currently the most popular piece in the shop!



More woodland inspired prettiness - these feather hairclips are now available in the Bbel shop - choose from black, white, silver mirror, red mirror and purple mirror!




So, here are some other woodland inspired designs that caught my eye on etsy. This purse is hand stitched by emedemarta - catch other designs in her shop.




I also love these solid silver designs from Anomaly Jewelry





....and this clutch bag from Tsurubride - what outfit is complete without a metallic navy squirrel clutch? And for veggies, she will do a custom order in pleather - perfect!





Couldn't resist the silver fox either - would go so well with the stole!


Just caught one of my necklaces in the Etsy Gift Guide: Woodland and Feathers - it's the double feather acrylic - strung on two sterling silver chains.....