It's a chipper nelly giveaway!

Hooray

 for 100 followers! 

And I believe it's customary to partake in a little giveaway to celebrate such a milestone.

There is (of course) a story behind my choice of giveaway. You may remember a lovely little set of blocks I used to make from old Beano comics....until the man from Beano said 'I don't think so'! (see here). 

Well, last week I heard from the people at Ladybird! To be precise, the lady from the licencing department at Penguin, who own Ladybird, placed an order for one ladybird block, featuring a single '!'. 

I took it as a gentle warning - what do you think? Being such a scardy cat I decided I shouldn't sell them anymore - but it doesn't stop me Giving them away!!

So - I hereby offer up a set of 6 unique chipper nelly blocks featuring images from vintage ladybird books AND 5 vintage Beano blocks... NOT available in any shop!  If you would like to see more images and examples here's the link to a flickr set. 

I'm happy to personalise them with a word or words of your choice and will post them ANYWHERE in the world.

To enter simply leave me a comment on this post. For a second chance to win grab the button and share the lo♥e on your sidebar, and let me know (can you believe I've made a button and managed a grabable code? I'm SO pleased with myself). 

I'll be drawing a name at random on 14th November.

So what else has been going on? We spent the first half of the half term holiday in Edinburgh. Cleggy and I spent a year living in there when newly married and have very fond memories. 

Cleggy's brother and family still live there - and kindly shared their (beautiful) home with us. We don't see nearly enough of them.

Our boys LOVED seeing their Scottish cousins!

Not many photos but hopefully these sum up our precious family time - thanks Gareth and Alice - we love you very much.

And, as always, lots of chipper nelly makes! I've got a whole new batch of Christmas products waiting to be photographed but until then some commissions - always a welcome break from Santa!

Birthday blocks and signs for boys for one of my favourite customers:

And loads of these nursery blocks for notonthehighstreet customers.

Each set ends up being quite different - 

I try to make the boys names more boyish and use lighter colours for the girls.

Another customer ordered three of the home blocks for a new home gift (with a lovely message on the back) so we did something a little different - which worked nicely! hope the recipients liked them too...

I know I've had a few new blogging pals follow recently - I'll be over to yours for a proper hello this weekend. Cleggy is away on business for the next few days...so I'll be whiling away my evenings blog hopping! (and maybe partaking in a small amount of dark chocolate..for my health you understand)

fee x

Going to sleep until March...

No, not me (I wish!) but Ned the tortoise! 

After loving the unexpected sunshine a couple of weeks ago he's definitely started slowing down, has stopped eating and is getting ready for the big sleep. After a couple of weeks, when we're sure he has nothing left in his stomach, we'll put him in the workshop fridge for the next 12-14 weeks. 

We were thrilled last year when he survived his first ever hibernation. See here for more lovely pictures of our my favourite pet waking up.


The ladies have all started growing some winter feathers and have also been loving the sunshine this weekend. Apparently we have some more rescue chickens booked in to collect sometime soon! (knew it wouldn't be long)

The ducks continue to be a joy to watch - but hard work to put away at night. I frequently find Myrtle the black duck in with the chickens - but Bertie the boy duck refuses to get in the duck house unless she's out of there and back where she belongs! They are very vocal - I swear they are laughing at me trying to herd them in...

Other than that it's been more of the same in the Chipper Nelly workshop - lots and lots of Christmas makes!

Some vintage Christmas blocks

 

Some Santa blocks

Vintage hearts

Happy holiday blocks

Some more vintage blocks

And, my favourite, Ho Ho flamin' Ho blocks

These blocks are bigger than my usual ones (6cm). The 'flamin' block comes separately so that it only need come out when the festive cheer begins to wane!

Thank you so much for the lovely comments about my previous Christmas offerings - the Snowy Vintage ones are my favourite too! All available HERE!

Now, my blog has very nearly 100 followers (how funny!) which I think warrants a giveaway! See next post...

fee x

(providing I get the elusive 100th follower that is!!!)

Harvest festival, Halloween and Christmas...

Yep - I'm all over the festivals this week!

It's still incredibly busy here - and I keep forgetting to take my camera whenever we do go anywhere/do anything worth blogging about so scant news to share.

The beautiful sunflowers are a gift from The Granny for helping her decorate the church in readiness for harvest. They are a welcome burst of colour in a room seriously lacking in sunshine this week!

Here they are in all their glory - with the Northfield Primative elephants proudly marching in front of them.

 Autumn is well and truly here in Manchester - which means Halloween plotting for boys 

 and Christmas planning for me. Its certainly more bearable now the beautiful weather has gone.

Here are my first offerings....snow babies!

...some snowy blocks

 

 ...and bird overload blocks (can you ever have too many birds?) 

More next post.

Right, off to lock up the chickens and ducks - the latter being particularly tricksy when it's raining (like right now!) 

I may be some time....

fee x