Holidays are coming...

It is not even December yet but I can feel a festive feeling in the air. The Coca Cola advert is on the telly and friends have expressed their cheer on Facebook and Twitter. Christmas trees are being hauled into shops and the Christmas Gift Fair season has started.

Today BB2 and myself were in Fallowfield. The morning started slowly, probably due to a drizzle and cold wind but we had a lovely afternoon, selling nice jewellery and trinkets.

We will be at Ivy Manchester on 5 December, Northern Lawn Tennis Club, Didsbury 6 December, Manchester Craft Mafia at the Whitworth Art Gallery 12 December, Broadstone Mill, Stockport on 20 December. We will be at several private events in between. Our party information is available on our website www.busybetsy.co.uk.

Hope to see you soon!

Yo-yo bag

There is lots to write about but due to lack of time I will have to delay posting about all the nice things I've seen and nice people I've met. There are quite a few fairs coming up and I need to make more stock, especially bags. Today was a good day to do some sewing, the weather was awful and I lost my voice. A bliss for some people and actually it really made me focus today. Anyway here is what I did tonight whilst enjoying the lovely Ant & Dec.

I got some silks and satins together .....

... made some Suffolk puffs....

... made a little drawstring jeans bag (with a big drawstring!) and decorated it with the little shiny yo-yo's.

I'll finish it tomorrow; I need to sift through mountains of paperwork now.

Sleep well for later....

In the pink

I am in good spirits, BB2 and myself attended the "In the Pink" event at Virgin Active in Didsbury tonight and apart from the comment : "Did Richard Branson clear out his cupboards, haha" we had fantastic feedback on the new range and were delighted that many lovely customers found Christmas presents.

We had brought with us chunky funky jewellery, beads, bags, bangles and brooches.

You might wonder what the items in the lower right corner (photo above) are. I can tell you that this is bunting, lovely colourful bunting. This can be used in the garden, in the kitchen, party room, bedroom, wherever you fancy really to brighten up a room. There is a reason for this explanation. In the past few weeks I had some interesting requests: little bit of string to hang up our Little Shopping Bags to be used as laces, clothes peg clips to be used as tie clips but tonight I was asked whether these colourful bits of fabric were men's thongs! Well I ask.... needless to say the girl in question was very embarrassed when she found out the triangles were something else. However, if there are any takers, i quite happily sew a few together to make for a funky Christmas surprise, I'd even sew some pompoms on.

For those of you who watch Big Brother, the lad with the little girl in the picture above is Stuart, selling raffle tickets. Doesn't mean anything to me as I do not watch the show but I assume he must be local.

We met some really lovely beautiful people tonight and hope to be in touch with them for some time to come.

I am now going to put my feet up, tomorrow is another busy day. XXX

't is the season to attend fairs

Busy Betsy & BB2 will be attending a number of fairs and events in the next few weeks and some of them have been organised in aid of charity such as the one this coming Wednesday. The event is in aid of Genesis of which I am a huge supporter. On a number of occasions I had to attend clinics myself at Wythenshawe Hospital where the Genesis team is based and thank God that they are there. Of course I'd love you all to come and say hello to me but please do come and support Genesis. Thank you!

Busy Betsy's Etsy Shop!

I almost forgot to mention but BB2 & myself have finally managed to focus on the Etsy shop : www.busybetsy.etsy.com. It is still very much in the making, as we are also working on the new site (www.busybetsy.co.uk) but we do have some items in the shop. Please have a look and tell us what you think!

Thank you!

Feeling all "Martha" today!

Years ago in my student house in Leiden we had an exchange student from America for a couple of months at the end of the year. She was a lovely girl with the sweetest mother who sent her parcels from the US all the time, as she really missed her favourite food from home. This way we were introduced to Marshmallow Fluff, Reece's peanutbutter cups and Oreo's. We really missed these too after she left, thankfully it wasn't long before the first American Store was opened in Amsterdam where we could not only buy these but a slice of real New York Pizza too!

However what did make an impact on me for the rest of my life was the celebrations of Halloween and Thanksgiving. We celebrated Halloween long before anyone had heard of it here and were delighted with our little pumpkin baskets full of sweets. Jennifer's mother had sent over boxes of decorations and food, including a turkey. She explained to us what we should eat on Halloween, that we should keep the pumpkin flesh to make puree to freeze for the Thanksgiving pie and told us what to do with the turkey.

We had a very memorable, scrumptious meal and every year before Halloween I will think of that wonderful time we had in this bubbly student house. I know we all complain about the commercial side of Halloween but that celebration we had just with friends, be it with some plastic goodies and tat, I will never forget. Sadly I cannot remember her surname, I would love to tell her that I have never forgotten her stay.

Today we made our own pumpkin food : pumpkin soup with melted cheese, pumpkin and apple crumble and pumpkin puree (probably going to be used in a cheesecake). Girl monkey said that the pumpkin and apple crumble (a Nigella recipe) was the best thing she'd ever eaten.

I feel I have released my inner Martha again, spending all afternoon in the kitchen. It feels like I am the happy housewife, clothing protected by a gingham apron, smiling from the pages of one of her magazines!

A Vintage Halloween

I was here today :

and I had a lot of fun. It was a beautiful day, it felt like Summer, there was a lovely atmosphere, great vintage clothing and lovely friends popping in. My lovely Dutch friend came all the way from Chester as a surprise, so nice! The monkeys came with me and had good fun, especially since they were spoilt with sweeties, cherry lollypops, homemade biscuits and hoola-hooping sessions. Boy monkey was dressed as a skeleton for the occasion!

I never know what is going to be popular at the fairs, it seems quite random but today the bags were especially in demand. The little shopping bags attracted a lot of attention and all the ginger bread bags sold.

I had some of these clips left from the previous fair and was quite pleased that girl monkey arranged them on the basket and took a picture at the time because today I learnt about a novel way of using them and I was so surprised that I wanted to share my amazement with you. I don't like plastic but am often too lazy to use containers so I tend to use these clips to close dry food bags. Girl monkey uses them as book marks or to clip papers together and no doubt there are other uses. As I said to the gentleman who came to my stall this afternoon, they really are quite versatile. Indeed, he said, they could be used as tie clips. He then showed me how it would look and liked it so much he bought two! Now there's a new idea. Any more takers? Quick, because I haven't got many left.

After the fair the monkeys were invited to a birthday party in the "Secret Garden" as they like to call it. It is a secret garden indeed but know as Paupers Wood. A beautiful plot of land, urban woodland I should say, in West Didsbury, that is being maintained through a community project. We've been to the wood several times and it is truly magical. The party was fabulous, there was a small fire for roasting marshmallows, hot chocolate, hotdogs and the lit pumpkins at the end of the afternoon really made Halloween special.

Unfortunately when we got home I was pulled into trick or treating. The amount of sweets handed out just makes me feel unwell. Girl monkey had the great idea to hand out her sweets to anyone who came trick or treating at our door but instead of waiting for the bell to ring she left her lovely pumpkin basket with sweets at the door as she did not want to get disturbed during X Factor. It comes as no surprise living in Manchester that her basket got stolen and I had a lot of tears after the show ended. Hope to find some half price ones at the supermarket tomorrow to make her happy again!