Home's

Months ago we promised that we would enter a tree into the local Christmas tree festival, the theme being Village Life.  An opportunity to use all our lovely habby goodies that seemed too good to pass up!  We spent a lovely Friday afternoon carefully decorating our small, but perfectly formed, tree to bursting point with gorgeous haberdashery notions and embellishments - with the tag line,  "never knowlingly under-embellished" 

It was lovely to see everyone arriving, all with different interpretations on the village life theme, from "afternoon tea" with branches adorned with gorgeous vintage tea wares and fairy lights to the "demise of the post office" a rather sad, but poignant reminder of the loss of local services.

We made a dolly peg fairy for the top of our tree, as well as button garlands, angora pom poms, mini bunting and also these cute little replicas of our brown paper carrier bags!

And cute parcels tied with jute string.

Hot on the heels of the tree festival preparations came the Swedish Fayre at Creeting House on Saturday. 

The barn was adorned with boughs of the beautiful trees cut from within the grounds of Creeting House and though it was cold outside, and quite cold inside, we were kept warm with gluhwein, yummy saffron buns fresh from the oven, and hot dogs. 

Our budding young crafter Caitlin came along with a selection of her beautiful card creations as well as some rather fetching robins that will be popping up on the blog very soon, we hope!

It was a lovely sociable day. 

 I've also been busy with the blank wooden shapes that we sell on our website, to create some Nordic inspired creatures such as the mummy and baby reindeer, complete with tinkly bells, and the winter hares with ribbon bow.

Some pretty wooden hearts - perfect for hanging on doors and cupboards as well as making sweet and individual table presents. And the ever popular bundles of Christmas Trees that look so pretty standing on a mantelpiece interwoven with ivy or garlands.

                                                            

We've just added the Angel shapes to our website - a new design that we created after a customer suggested it! So, here are the first two that have been decorated.....never miss an opportunity to use buttons and embellishments!

I've lots more ideas, and works in progress....but sadly, not lots more time, so I will have to sneak in whatever crafting time I can find!

Hot on the heels of the Swish last week, next Saturday we're back at Creeting House to take part in their Swedish weekend! Between 11am and 4pm on Saturday 27th November, Creeting House are hosting a Swedish Mini Market. There'll be Swedish Christmas decorations and gifts, speciality Craft stalls, Reclaimed & new gift items. There will also be gluhwein (mulled wine), mince pies and roasted chestnuts. We're also promised the opportunity to meet the Swedish Chefs Lars, Ture and Ulfie, who are travelling over especially from Sweden to provide swedish culinary goodies for the event. They will also be busy preparing authentic culinary feasts on the Friday and Saturday evenings at Creeting House.

It promises to be a really great weekend and something really different. With the promise of Gluhwein we couldn't resist so we will be taking a little bit of Halfpenny Home to Creeting House for the day.

If you're able to come along - we'd love to see you!
For directions to Creeting House, see the website at http://www.creetinghouse.com/

Jacqui x

This lovely patterned floor is laid out just like a patchwork quilt! We aren't obsessed with all things textile but it does change the way you see the world ...this floor is in Creeting House which was the venue for last weeks and this weeks Swish Up event - a whole post on this to follow shortly!

Halfpenny Home was there or a very small part of it was!
It's tricky to show people who have never visited HH HQ just what it is like and what goes on there but I think that we managed it this week. The good wives of Sew and Crow don't like to waste a single second so they all brought their knitting and crochet along to Creeting House with them.

There will be some of Laura's soap available at the Humble Jumble up at The Ark on King William Street in Needham Market on Saturday 20th November - it's starting earlier this month 10 am - 3 pm.
Flossie is proudly sporting a HJ poster along with one of our hand dyed silk scarves and a skirt by Polly's Textiles.

Floss stood in for me (I'm shy!) to show off my new cardigan wrap thing that is so snuggly and warm, here it is wrapped up...

and here it is worn down!

Cheers Floss! Hope to see you all up the jumble on Saturday, Nic x

In amongst all the activity at Halfpenny Home, I've also been involved in working with friends to organise our third, and most up-market Swish! Remember the Twiggy programme on TV where ladies got together to swap their unwanted quality clothes? Well, this is our version. This time around we're doing it in aid of EACH, the East Anglian Children's Hospice for their Treehouse Appeal and it's going to be on 11th November 2010.

It's a brilliant and fun way to recycle and get yourself a new wardrobe to boot! (yes, maybe some new boots too!!). We're organising a fashion show with some of the swap items to be compered by Rachel Sloane, from our local BBC Radio Station, Radio Suffolk. And, of course, given the thrifty nature of the event, Halfpenny Home was happy to be involved and will be having a stall, along with some other local businesses. We're hoping the lovely buttons and notions, ribbons and trims will give ladies lots of ideas of how to maybe customise their new attire!

Above is a picture of the venue for our Swish! Creeting House! You may recall it being featured on Ruth Watson's Hotel Rescue in the summer of 2009. It's a gorgeous place with lovely owners, Di and Steve, who've so generously agreed to let us use it for the Swish. Take a look at their website http://www.creetinghouse.com/. Highly recommended if you ever want to treat yourself to a weekend in Suffolk and a visit to Halfpenny Home, which is just a stones throw away.

There are still a few tickets left for the Swish so if any of you would like a ticket or more details, do get in touch. You can email enquiries@halfpennyhome.co.uk and I'll send you further details. For those further afield I promise to take lots of pics of the event and post about it afterwards!

Jacquix