Been Busy

I guess it's been a while since I blogged but I just wanted to say I'm still here!  I've just had a busy few weeks is all.

To begin with I was busy baking and preserving - no surprise for this time of year huh?

I made up several loaves of zucchini bread and bottles of elderberry cordial to donate to an open day and produce sale at the allotments to raise funds for some much needed new equipment.  As a member of the society we get shared use in things like lawn mowers and power strimmers but these things still have to be purchased in order to have them to loan out.  It's nice to be able to contribute to this kind of thing plus it's a great time to catch up with other plot holders too.

Here is hubby helping to set things up.  We had baked goods, jams, juices and all kinds of vegetables arriving throughout the morning.

My zucchini bread was popular and I even managed to trade some for a couple of home grown butternut squash and a bottle of raspberry vinegar.  Our butternut are rather small this year so I was thrilled to get my hands on more.  I absolutely love to barter for things - it's a 'win-win' situation so everyone walks away happy.

A half dozen bottles of cordial went into the sale as well and these proved popular too.

Then of course there were the things I just had to buy like these scrummy cupcakes made by my old boss Jackie.  Her and her hubby have a plot just across the way from ours and I've had enough of Jackie's baked goods over the years to know that these were every bit as delicious as they looked so I wasn't about to pass them up.

And since I now had butternut squash that left me making soup which as it turned out came in really handy for a care package I found I needed.  Nothing better when you're feeling poorly than a hot bowl of soup which is often as much as you can manage.

And somewhere in between all this I managed to get in a bit of crafting.  I have been dragging my Christmas stamps out - some of which I haven't ever used yet and trying them out.

I purchased a book of music sheets earlier in the year and have been wanting to make up handmade envelopes with them for some time now.  I added a bit of stamping to give them a Christmassy feel.  Plus this is the first time I've stamped up tags using some of these sets and I love them.

I am attempting to design projects for a Christmas workshop that I hope to be running at our church.  I have always wanted to make up a 'front door' card and since there was a perfect wreath stamp in one of the sets I knew it would be a perfect project for a beginner.

And as if that wasn't enough, our Jess has come home for good so there has been a whole lot of other stuff going on besides.  Moving her back home has been tough going at times and I know things won't be easy for her for a while yet but we're glad to have her back.

Right now I have a liver casserole in the oven that's about done and potatoes that need mashing.  I know, I know, I don't eat meat but hubby still does and liver and bacon casserole is his favourite so I made one up for him today.  It's getting colder so I'm fancying hot comfort food like mashed potato and gravy - yum.  I'll be back later to post my efforts on the latest Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge that I made up today.

Hugs