Hetty Jean: Scene staging at home and craft fairs

There is a lovely shop in Madoc called Country Treasures. At the beginning of the summer I bought a wooden wheelbarrow that Pat Shannon of Red Door Antiques and More had sourced (check out her page on facebook). I had to have it. Pete was very dubious, but once it was laden with plants even he admitted it looks great.

I'm faced with the prospect of moving it from this space to about 8ft to the left. Pete is ordering some gravel which we need to top up the driveway, and the spot that the wheelbarrow occupies at the bottom of the drive is the most logical space to have the gravel unloaded.

Either side of the path to the house are two flowerbeds crammed with Jurassic sized hostas and day lillies. Actually I should say there were two, the one closest to the house has been cleared, covered with weed suppressant and just needs gravel to finish it off. Whilst it looked wonderful the flowers really took up too much of the walking space, so much so that you could barely see the paving slabs, and as I am capable of falling over an ant it wasn't terribly practical. We have some low profile solar lights to bed into the gravel, and our wooden bench and two cast iron urns filled with begonias will then sit on the gravel. Practical and pretty. I'll show you a picture once its finished.

I bought another of Pat's finds the other day. It is this cute little stool.

At 5'9" I don't need it to access the highest of high cupboards in the kitchen. No, I think this stool is going to be absolutely perfect for staging on my Hetty Jean craft fair table.

T-Rex likes it, actually I think he's laughing!

Funnily enough when I got home I glanced at the collage of family pictures on the wall, and I was sitting on its twin (well not really, but it is similar). My older sister Sarah is in the middle, and the blonde blur on the left is my younger sister Jane, who is still a person of perpetual motion.

I have been doing some more stitching. My softies are all hand sewn, and in the majority of cases I create my own pattern. This time I wanted to make a "big" cat (all of 10 inches from nose to tail). Pete thought it was a lion, but I had a different cat in mind.

So, I needle felted different colours of felt onto the blank canvas. Then I worked on his face using embroidery floss to create his eyes and nose. Then the stripes were embroidered on, and he went from the picture above to the gorgeous little guy below. It took a lot of work but I'm really happy with the end result.