New Stuff!

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly mommy babble and handmade goings on...


New Stuff!... I am trying to adjust to a quiet few days after a long busy couple of months, and obviously what happened at Christmas with our dog, and really enjoying the free time to think, read, bake and conjure up new ideas and nurture my shops a little. It's been lovely outside of work too being able to get out of the house a bit to enjoy lots of 1 on 1 time with my children.


I have tried hard over the months to give determinned attention to my photography store, and I'll be honest I had been experiencing times of wondering whether I should have closed up as my other shop Babamoon has dominated so much of my time, I have up until now been completely unable to get out and take new photos. Maintaining it was never a problem but I'm always seeking the fresh and new, and with the seasons changing I have been so desperate to get out and enjoy capturing some of the interesting things going on in nature. And then there's my digital painting, the signature of my style in Moonangelnay Photography. That's been at a standstill lately and the most useful thing my pen tablet had been doing in my absence was to collect dust. I felt pretty guilty that I was only able to print orders and renew listings. It felt very much like a production line, and there was nothing new being put in so I really did think that I should have shut shop for a little while until I have my studio set up in my new house when we move. Thankfully though the break has come along without me needing to close either of them even just for a vacation so I have some new things coming along in both stores that I wanted to share which I had been meaning to do for months :) It's nice having the urge to take photos but I have a growing backlog of images with tonnes of notes on to edit from the summer and autumn so I'm currently completing those as well as thinking of new ideas for images this year.


My daughter has started to crawl this week which has been the highlight for our little family. It's so far been a bum shuffling effort from her to get from A to B, but she has finally begun to coordinate her legs with the movements from her arms. She's still a bit clumsy with it but it's early days. I'm very proud of her for being so mobile for so long without the ability to crawl! She looks like she's ready to pull herself up to her feet too as she's giving clambering up furniture a good go. It'll be lovely to see her running around, I can't wait :) My son has also had some nice things going on for him lately like growing confidence in his independance, which has come in good time for him beginning nursery. He's been ever so good intergrating into the whole nursery scenario which for a lot of children can be a bit daunting, yet his teachers tell me he settled in without any real sort of need for their support, and has already been making friends after just his trial session! Very proud of him for that. I'm sure when I was his age, I clung on to my mom's ankles for dear life when I realised she was going to leave me at nursery LOL!


I think I might bake some bread today so I'm off to do that after checking out the hoppers from Thursdays Blog Hop. Stop by on Thursday if you'd like to join in the next one, I do try to follow back everyone I havent followed before! Hope you all have a great weekend and take care x

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com

moonangelnay x

A Quick One

A quick one... I'm sure everyone is going mental this weekend preparing for Christmas... 6 days away... sheesh! I am quite certain the last time I looked which i swear was yesterday (ahem) there was at least another 10 days added to that number. Anyhoo, I cannot ramble much today for I have orders to fulfill, presents to knit, and food to prepare for the big day. I instead thought I'd leave a recent new image that I hope to add to the collection in my hat shop after Christmas, and give ya'll a sneak preview :) I have made bajillions of these rainbow bunny hats so I thought it deserved some new images. And this one is one of my faves! :)
If I don't randomly post in the week (which is likely as I have too much to do to focus much on features), I'll wish you all a Merry Christmas now! Speak soon!

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com

moonangelnay x

Short and Sweet!

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly mommy babble and handmade goings on...



Just for today... I am gonna have to have that love ya and leave ya mentality relating to this post. I have LOADS of hat orders to get through for Christmas which is a really nice feeling as I don't think I've been this busy before with either of my stores. Since Black Friday things have just continued to pick up and it's bloomin' marvelous! Besides a bit of sleep deprivation I feel really good about what's happening and praying that it's not just because of the holidays, but because i spent over a day last week changing every single listing and tag in my shop to improve it's internet SEO. And by golly if double my usual shop views have anything to do with it then I need to continue nurturing what's currently going on! So until next Sunday my dears!

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com

moonangelnay x

Trip to Santa

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly mommy babble and handmade goings on...

Blog's 'Fourth Giveaway' winner! Congratulations to "BananasAreGross". You have won yourself a custom made adorable mouse headband! I have contacted you via email :)

Trip to Santa! ... I was in a bit of a stressful polava yesterday trying to navigate my way through stationary human traffic in my City Centre through what is quite possibly the busiest shopping day I have ever dared set foot in... ever! And boy did I wish I didn't after a few hours lol! We were there from 11am to 5pm and I really couldn't believe how much shopping time we had in those hours. It was so bad we actually spent more time squashed between people at the Frankfurt Market trying to go from the museum to the Bullring then we did actually browsing any market stalls (of which we only managed to glance at about 4) and shopping down the high street. It was absolute chaos! My poor kids were freezing as it had plummetted to -7 degrees celcius in the day which is highly unusual for Birmingham at the best of times, and everyone had that 'ploughing mentality' where they just look at the floor and bowl themselves through the crowds. My son who was being a very good boy despite everything was being knocked all over the place, and trying hard not to loose the Christmas spirit I was feeling pretty crappy about why we hadn't forseen such a thing coming. We decided to cut the shopping short in the end and I'm going to go back, armoured and ready for the crowds to do a bit of people ploughing myself and finish my Christmas shopping when I get my last orders out of the way. I wouldn't put my kids through that again, it's disheartening to think that people can be so rude, ignorant and cruel knocking a 3 year old to the floor many times without apologising, or half the time even noticing when all we did was courteously make way for people trying to set a good example to the children. *Sigh*

At least the best part of the day was spent when we had initially arrived into town and made our way to the Museum and Art Gallery to have cultured morning looking at the exhibits and to visit our favourite Santa that always sets up his grotto at the Museum every year. It was so wonderful. Because he had only planned to be there for 2 days, we expected to be queuing for ages upon arrival but we were actually pretty much first in there!

We were greeted by a Christmas Fairy who was very sweet to my son who at that point had melted away all of his brave Santa list chatter and gone very shy, and managed to coax us into the lovely little grotto that we could hear Santa Ho Ho Ho-ing in to himself. This being my daughters first Christmas was an extra special occassion and Santa was very sweet picking up on that and having a discussion with my son about it. My son at the best of times when he is in shy mode tends to just stand glued to the spot but was very quickly warmed to this lovely man's kindness and way with words which made the whole experience very exciting for him, and gave him that bit of independance and confidence that we crave for him when it comes to talking to other people. He can sometimes be heavily reliant on us for being as shy as he is, so was a revelation for him in his ability to be a big boy and talk about his little sister and wishes with confidence. It was the perfect trip! And after we had a wander around the museum and let my son direct us to all of his favourite exhibitions like "the Cry" bronze sculpture and Ancient Egyptian area. I guess things always work out that way just to balance things out. Well... despite the hullaballoo in town, my kids are in fab spirits today, so I think seeing Santa was enough to keep everything positive for them this weekend :)

Regarding work I am super busy with hat making this weekend as Black Friday has been and gone and my Babamoon sale is going on until the 13th of December anyway so people have started getting their Christmas orders in. If you are interested in purchasing a hat from Babamoon this weekend then there's 25% off everything! If you want a further 10% off, join my Facebook Page and look out for my FB Fans Coupon Code on the page :) Note that I am not running this sale in my photography store.

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com

That's it for now. Have a great weekend all!


moonangelnay x

It Takes Two!

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly mommy babble and handmade goings on...

It Takes Two! ... I am quite familiar with that number this week as it been encompassing a lot of the goings on in plenty of the situations befalling me. Like my spam happy commenter has stopped using their old alias to riddle this blog full of crap (number twos... ho!) and started using a NEW one... for which I dont even want to dignify with naming it... I wouldn't want to give them a fighting chance in the searching engines, they've ticked me off too much now. That's the most negative number two of the week thankfully. The remainder has been a much more positive with double the effort I make in the day to run my Babamoon store as I now find myself constantly nurturing both the Etsy one and my newer Artfire one. Still haven't done the Zibbet one although I will do eventually. I think that I'm going to try and strenghten the presence of my Artfire shop first both outside and in. I am really happy with how it's working out but I have needed to tweak all my imported listings which is time consuming, although having said that it has made me evaluate how to try improving on my listing SEO. I have also made two new headbands this week that are very cute. Two hearts, one red and one green. Perfect for Christmas I think :) The intention was to make a host of colors, but realistically I think a project like that is best saved for over the holidays when there's less of a Christmas panic! Speaking of headgear, I also purchased two new pinks in the Sirdar Snowflake yarn that I normally make the animal hats out of in response to a customer that was looking for a softer pink for a potential order... but couldn't decide which was better, and for one of my orders in the week I had to make 2 bear hats which isn't usual as i normally find the bunny hats dominate my orders. Then there's been my two children and spending more time than usual in their comapny as my partners has had a busier than normal week working. That's been the nicest part as although I am with them all of the time anyway, just having that little bit more has given more thought as to how to spend the extra time together so I figured that as my daughter is more alert now I would reintroduce baby signing into the household. So out came my sons old DVDs and I got a fab app with all the BSL signs that are helpful on hand for doing this with children, and I've been signing away with my sons help trying to teach her how to communicate with us along with speech. She's taking to it well, although rather than trying to sign she's doing an amazing job of copying sounds which is wonderful, and in all of this she has worked out how to say Dada and associate the word to her Daddy :) It's really cute, whenever he's in the room she'll give him the biggest smile and say "Eyo Dada!" I tell ya, he's been on cloud 9 all week... she loves saying it to him. She's 6 months old today so I'm really pleased with her achievement :)

Well that's it for now although I just want to quickly mention that the is 10% off everything in Babamoon until 11pm GMT tonight! If you're looking for Christmas gifts for baby then this is one opportunity before Black Friday to take advantage! Best wishes everyone and Happy Thanksgiving for those that will celebrate on Thursday. Ta ta!

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com...

Have a great weekend all!


moonangelnay x

Spam Alert!

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly mommy babble and handmade goings on...

Blog's 'Third Giveaway' winner! Congratulations to "asuka". You have won yourself a custom made adorable flower sun hat! I have contacted you via email :)

Spam alert! ... I am holding my breath a bit at the moment. I'm not so certain if it's because of the weekend but a certain spammer under two names (Gucci Outlet and Coach Outlet) has ceased tormenting my blog archive full of irrelavent comments linking back to their commecial *shudders* web stores. I dont wish to be a turd about the fact my site is for handmade goods and handmade artisan features, but I was a bit perplexed at the fact they tried to exploit my page loads of times to promote their commercial stores whilst completely ignoring my warnings for them to stop it. That's just plain offensive. I think when you spend a lot of time doing things to help people and maintaining a blog on a daily basis, it's kind of rude for someone to come along and post blatently unrelated comments onto posts that are not only recent, but ones that are from the distant past as if posting them deep into my blog means I won't notice them??? HA! is all I have to say.

I left my comments open a while ago to make it easier for my genuine readers to post for things like my giveaway, and I did wonder when someone would try and take advantage of it. I thought "Hey, at least if I contact them and tell them to quit it, they'll get lost...". And I tried that... And you know, they completely ignored me and carried on like I didn't say anything??? That peed me off big time and prompted a bit of a rant message which I am HOPING is the reason they've left my blog alone. I think that their tactics were a bit thick headed though. I knew they weren't reading my posts because they had a variety of types of comment. Some were exerpts from various posts of mine (yeah! I know LOL), some were so off key from a post topic only bats could of appreciated them, and to top it off they didn't actually notice that I DELETED every one of their spam comments every single day, only to repost more crap on the same posts they may have posted on days before like they had "never read them before". It's been driving me nutty all week. But yes, twice I have had to contact them and only since yesterday they stopped. I do heavily moderate my comments and to all of you out their who read my blog I swear I have never once had to delete comments due to spam so to all of you thankyou for your relevant and kind words, whatever topic they may have come under :)

Well that was the only bad part of the week thanks goodness. The rest has been pretty productive. Looks like we have the house we want! So plans are underway to pack and dump things which I MUST crack on with today as much as my little arms can speed through my junk, as the local council are having a rare dump collection tomorrow morning which should save me and my partner a few thousand trips to the local tip yard... OK I'm exaggerating, but man after seeing all of my piled up boxes upstairs I'm beginning to sweat, so that's on the cards today I think. On top of a visit from my dad who's bringing up a few of my siblings for a visit! Eeek! So lots to do!

During the week I made a few new things for Babamoon like my super sweet crochet cable santa hat, and my sparkly Tam O' Shanter which has to be my absolute favourite. It looks totally awesome on my daughter. I'm going to work on other colors soon too as I have a bajillion ideas that have resulted from the design. I LOVE how they have turned out, and they are now both listed in my shop in various sizes for made to order purchases. I also managed to finally list and manage my Artfire store which I have been absolutely pants with for way too long. But now at least it is being as loved and nurtured as my Etsy shop. Hey I had even made my first sale on it :) Good going I think. I am planning to now open up a Zibbet shop exclusively for babamoon to hopefully give it a bit more stretch on the web as it's still a bit of a baby and I could do with a few more venues to spread the word without having to spend as much time as I have with my photography store inputting the shop link into loads of places. I will have to do that some time but for now I think another selling venue will be enough. Zibbet is pretty new and looks quite promising so I'm excited about what I can do with it. I'll probably have more on that next week.

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com...

That's it for now. Have a great weekend all!


moonangelnay x

Grump-o-meter

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly mommy babble and handmade goings on...

Grump-o-meter... Halloween went down without a hitch, with taking a dunk in a makeshift bobbing for apples pot, a minimal healthy Halloween feast, and a visit from a close friend who became the subject of torment... ahem play time from my little boy lol!. It was the highlight of the week, and soon to be followed with a pretty rough time of things. I have had a bit of a high strung week since Halloween, but there has been a lot happening. Like for example we are supposed to be moving house earlier than anticipated and looking at various processes relating to it that are hair raising enough in thought let alone the reality. It's an exciting prospect but my goodness I wish we had started all this sooner really... Hindsight is a lovely thing... I think this is the universes way of rewarding my impatience, so as I had hoped all those months ago (eek) it's all happening very very fast! So yes that has been reviving my inner goblin this week, as has my little mans terrible-three head that I think he kept on after Halloween lol! He has been a bit of a monster as of late choosing to get practice in acting like a teenager when various things happen that draw attention away from him. For example a few days ago my daughter cried because she needed a feed, and he suddenly started to fake cry. I approached him and asked him what was wrong and he was be like "I'm hungry too waaaaaahhhhhh!" with a sandwich firmly in his grasp, really belting out the biggest yell he could muster. So I pointed out his half eaten sandwich (I dared... I learnt my lesson) and he proceeded to fling himself onto the sofa as one does in a strop and then had an angry wobbly (the polite way to put it) because I obviously shouldn't have pointed out the tasty lunch he was already eating. Hmmm... well once diffused I asked him why he was being silly and his answer was "Oh, I'm angry so I'm going to feed MYSELF!" hmm yes... So, fun with a mini teen this week was on the cards. And to add to the joy I had been bestowed I have the most bizarre pains shooting through my little toe whenever I walk on it. I'm telling you that it is KILLER... But the weird thing is I haven't banged my foot, walked on it strangely or sprained it to my knowledge. It's so freaky. It only happens if I place my foot down in the wrong way but I still can't work out which way is the wrong way so I am constantly hopping around in pain to the delight of my kids who obviously think mommy is a very funny lady. Fun! I have to admit though that Bonfire night changed things a bit. We had a mini display of fountains and Roman candles in the garden for my little boy to enjoy which was nice, and he got to try out his first sparklers too! I haven't done the fireworks thing since I was a kid so it was nice running up and down the garden and hearing my little man squeal happily with each firey burst (sorry naighbours!). It's never been my thing really as I always worry about the animals with them, but as we got all the nice quiet ones it wasn't bad at all :)

Well my partner's at home today so my plan is to take advantage of the free time he's going to give me and clean the house in peace, finish my orders and have a yummy hot chocolate drink whilst watching a movie to myself as a reward. I need a rest which I don't normally admit but besides being tired and stressed from the week, I could do with the quiet reflection time as it's going to be impossible doing anything like that with the chaos of moving. It's been a toughy but to lighten the load I decided to pull out of my craft show to accomodate all these important priorities. It doesn't matter as I can always apply to others later. It's just unfortunate timing but, for my family it'll be a new beginning and worth giving all the time I have to making sure things run smoothly.

I'm chuffed at least to have progression in both of my stores :) A couple of new things have been introduced which you can click on below to check out the listings directly! In Babamoon I had a custom order before Halloween to make an adult sized Kiki headband and I loved it so much I made one for the store! And in my photography store I have one of my first 2011 5x7 Desk Calendars which can be put in a frame, stuck to the wall, stuck to the fridge, whatever creative placement you have in mind, there are 12 gorgeous photos to take you through the year to enjoy and beyond as the best part about them is that they are all printed using the Micro-piezo system that I love when I print my Giclee prints so they will last for a very long time!

Anyways coffee time!

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com...

That's it for now. Have a great weekend all!


moonangelnay x

Anticipation

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly mommy babble and handmade goings on...

Blog's 'Second Giveaway' winner! Congratulations to "amber01sw". You have won yourself a custom made adorable flower headband! I will contact you shortly :)

Anticipation... . I'm writing before the day begins as it is Halloween and I know my day is going to be full of cooking, little monsters and roaring (that'll be me... lol). Last year we had a blast dressing up and having fun with some friends of ours. For my son it was his very first experience of acknowledging the whole commercial side to Halloween. Well he's extremely prepared this time around! He decided I think about 4 months ago that he was going to be a vampire and still hasn't let up on that idea! Unfortunately though I swear I have NOT been able to get any vampire teeth anywhere for him. I searched Toys R Us, my local craft shop that has a HUGE amount of halloween dress up stuff, and even my supermarket which stocked and even larger amount of stuff including costumes... but teeth? I was out of luck! I mean vampire outfits without teeth? Perhaps I didn't look hard enough lol. I was limited with the stores I could visit in the retail park, but I hoped the supermarket would pay off being as they have already stripped many small businesses in the UK bare... all without vampire teeth! My son made an awesome Darth Maul earlier in the week when my partner had a dabble at painting his face. We have a lightsaber at least lol! But vampire it is for today!

So I'm just going to have to paint them on for him which is ok... I'm excited anyway, as it's nice that my son is starting to look forward to these things now! I've already done my pumpkin, and baked a pumpkin and pecan pie... trying really hard not to devour it before later lol! I can't wait to photograph some of the dishes i have planned.

Nothing new has happened with me this week other than anticipating happenings next week, completing orders and finishing my son's Sooty puppet which is a Christmas present for him... just need to make Sweep and Soo next. Stuff has been happening with my little girl though, who is now finally sitting confidently on her own, purposefully batting things with her plastic hammer and grabbing like crazy lol! I wish I could keep up with her, she's just going a bit too quickly for me at the mo! It's amazing how much you take on board with the first and how it all just flies by with the second. I'm really chuffed for her though I have been able to tell for ages that she's been desperate to play with her big brother and now she can! Great stuff :)

Right! Bed Time! Take care :)

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com...

That's it for now. Have a great weekend all!


moonangelnay x

Buzzing

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly mommy babble and handmade goings on...

Buzzing... Ok... Woo!... Boy have I been a busy bunny, and I wish that the busy activity was as soft and fuzzy as my hats but I'm probably more flopsy and fuzzy right now. I have only really just reflected on it all which is unusual for me as I'm normally very apt at taking in the days events when my children are in bed in the evenings. I have to give a big thankyou to the stupendous amounts of coffee I have devoured this week, for which I doubt I would be sitting her typing to you all if I'd have gone without lol... It's not just been work really but there have been some huuuuuuuuuge changes which mean that the big dynamics of next year are going to happen sooner like moving, then despite our initial confidence we are going to home school our son part-time whilst he attends mainstream school when he's 4 (long story), then there's been just a few personal things like me bringing in a new exercise routine to get out of my procrastinating rut ("i will excercise!!!... tomorrow!"... gets kinda old after months of putting it off LOL), trying to decide which photos to take along to my craft show (i can't use them all... darn it), making new hat designs and of course completing orders. I think I'm loving the fact that I've squeezed in new designs into my biggest achievement of the week as I am GUTTED that tonnes of ideas I had for Halloween totally fell through over the weeks. I had written them all out in a notepad and had planned a whole bunch of new headbands and a few hats to put up a couple of weeks ago but so far they are still just a few words on a piece of paper, so I am now thinking ahead to Christmas! I will be listing some of this weeks bits and bobs in the morning (it's the early hours on Sunday morning for me and I need sleep). Fingers crossed that I have a tonne more by next weekend, in addition to less limp muscles with all the exercise I'm going to get (ho hum!) and maybe if I'm really good I can avoid coffee for a while lol! And as for the kids, gosh I am actually relaxing a little more this week as my daughter is now actively playing without getting stroppy for slightly longer periods now, and to my son she is a whole new child lol! He is such a dear playing with her and trying to show her how to make her baby toys work, it's stretching my 20 minute break to myself to about 30 mins now... I say break yet I mean hands free... Hey if it means a hot cup of tea instead of lukewarm I'm game lol! I love that she can sit with him now on her own and dive into a pile of soft toys and actually giggle about it! It's amazing that this much time has passed already. I can still hear my bellowing echoing around the birth center the day I had her... ahhh memories. I could do it all again lol!

Right! Bed Time! I will be about in the morning folks! Take care :)

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com...

That's it for now. Have a great weekend all!


moonangelnay x

Dreaming of Purls

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly mommy babble and handmade goings on...


Dreaming of Purls... I have an announcement to make before I share my post for today, and that is of the blog's 'First Giveaway' winner! Congratulations to Beth Willis of "The Willis Family Blog!". You have won yourself a custom made adorable pom pom hat like the one shown on the left. I will be processing your specific details soon as you already know :) So wow I can't believe the first one is all over! And so many of you entered too it was an amazing start to what I hope will be a great future for the giveaway feature :) There is currently ANOTHER giveaway running that began yesterday and is going to run until the 30th of this month so if you would like the opportunity to give it a go you can visit my second blog giveaway via the link :) I wanted to also say if people could PLEASE STOP entering the first giveaway! Some of you have 0_o And I have tried to close the comments since, but it looks like they are still open on my end... very new to that side of blog post control so you'll have to bare with me, but there is a "closed" notice as the top of the first giveaway post, although it seems a few people missed it... So I'll work out how to close the comments as fast as my little fingers can scour a page and hopefully prevent any confusion asap!

Anyway! I have got to say sooooooooooo many people out there seem to love my crochet flopsy bunny hat which has been translated into my sales count in my store... I have made so many in loads of different colors now for everyone that has ordered! I don't remember being as busy as I am currently for a long time regarding work, and I thought my photography business kept me on my toes. It's been wonderful but I have been knitting and crocheting so much that I'm even dreaming about it LOL! It's must be something to do with being a SAHM... my body is accustomed to poopy nappies, nursery rhymes and toddler tantrums and the thought of regular work has over excited my brain LOL! I'm having the best time though as it's something I love to do and I get so much satisfaction knowing that some of my snuggly creations are keeping little baby bonces warm somewhere in the world. I look forward to merging Babamoon into my prospective out of home business in portraiture. But before I can begin writing up a new webpage (which is my next task) for that, I must must must complete my orders and hope that a free day comes my way to get a move on with it. Time management is becoming my forté, and I am really feeling the sense of accomplishment that comes with it.

My partner has been recently gushing about how proud he is of me and I am so glad to feel like I can finally work on a plan that'll take care of the kids future. My little boy is proving each day to be more of a little man by very intelligently working out the things going on around him and being able to apply his own logic or helpful actions to keep the household moving. Like on my birthday he knew that I was getting ready for my first proper (kid free) evening out with my partner for a few years and he kept saying things like "You have to have a nice bath mommy, I want to mop the floor to help"... bless him! Each day he also insists on doing little things to help his baby sister like trying to teach her all the baby signing he learned at her age, singing songs to her and sharing his toys. For a child that has recently turned 3 I am so proud of his willingness to express such love for his family in such an intelligent way. He can be one cheeky monkey sometimes but what 3 year old isn't? I am just so chuffed that he isn't objecting to a lot of the changes that have come with having a new baby at home and seems to be just sailing along with it comfortably and enthusiastically. His efforts do make my days a little easier as I am just full on with everything including all of my mom duties, breastfeeding and donating milk to my local milk bank for the preemies. My daughter is now kinda able to sit up with a little less support each day which has been brilliant for her exploration of play, and has made life a lot more interesting at home. It frees up my hands a bit as well to be able to work on orders whilst supervising their play (or schooling for my son) time instead of normally having to be the armchair! It'll be interesting to see how this week progresses as she seems to be going through a spurt of changes. I envision that one day I'll probably be chasing her across the floor padding out all the corners so I'm probably in the honeymoon period right now lol!

Anyways I'd better be off to get on with the day. Thanks for reading and I'll be back for another ramble next week :)

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com...

Lobelia Dreams 5x7 Inch Fine Art Photo



2 x Christmas Red, Green and White Pointy Pom Pom Bobble Elf Hats

That's it for now. Have a great weekend all!


moonangelnay x

Birthday Long Weekend

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly mommy babble and handmade goings on...


Birthday Long Weekend! Since Thursday I have been celebrating my birthday (yesterday) in the most rewarding and special way that I can remember for a LONG time. My partner was wonderful on the Thursday, taking the kids for the afternoon whilst I visted Birmingham City Center to do a little birthday shopping which is something I havent done in about 2 years... not just for my birthday I mean. I didnt buy much in terms of clothing but I only realised when I was trying on different outfits in the stores just how hard I work and how much I don't do as I am a total mommy devotee lol! It was really really nice just being able to treat myself, and to add to the satisfaction I was able to buy a really nice outfit for last nights planned meal and boogy night out :) Before that though, I planned to have a birthday date with my little boy which I took the Friday to do, being as for the past 2 weeks he has insisted every day that it was my birthday (lol) and I figured he would really find it special if we had a day doing something fun together to celebrate it. And to prove my theory he thought he was the one treating me despite the fact that I was paying for everything lol!!! We went to Thomas Land and I let go and unleashed my inner child for the day. We had a blast! And now that my little boy is a lot bigger than the last time we visted, it meant that we were able to go on the "big toddler" rides which I think has now turned him into a thrill seeker LOL. He had us both go on the Troublesome Trucks Rollercoaster so many times bless him, each time with his arms up in the air before we'd even start moving LOL. Hey I didn't mind... it was a pretty cool ride! Being as it was his first fast roller coaster (for a toddler ride i was amazed at the speed!) I bought a couple of pictures of us looking jolly, one in a card frame and another as a fridge magnet which he is in love with and has it proudly sitting next to his favourite magnets in our kitchen :) It was a wonderful day!

And yesterday for my actual birthday I had a lovely relaxing morning at home being given flowers and chocolates in bed by my little boy, having a lovely long bath after doing a bit of work and then took my time pampering myself ready for the evening. My partner had organised a secret meal at a new restaurant buffet in town which was awesome, Then after we hit the party scene in town and hopped around a few bars and had a little boogy too. It was great fun. That's something else I haven't done in two years so it was REALLY nice to be able to get out with some of my best friends and enjoy a wonderful evening! I wish I coulda put some photos up in this post but I can't find the cable for this ancient camera that I took out (there was no way I'd take my DSLR). I am glad I am in one piece today actually, my friends had been joking for a while that they planned to make sure it was a night I wouldn't forget being as I haven't gone out in so long LOL! I paced myself pretty well I think and awoke today just a little tired, but with very happy children smiling at me :)

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com...

Cluster Of Stars 8x12 or 8x10 Inch Fine Art Photo

Baby 6 to 12m Soft Double PomPom Beanie Hat in Hot Pink

That's it for now. Have a great weekend all!


moonangelnay x

Daily Play

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly musings, articles and mostly babble...


Daily Play I don't know what it's going to mean at the mo as it's early days but I have finally decided to give Thursdays and Saturdays their own feature on my blog. Some of you have gathered already I suppose! Thursday is a day for BLOGS, considering that every other day is either focused on handmade items or Etsy shops... I love blogs... the stories, the work, the features. They rock! And considering that in places like the Etsy forums, myself and many people create threads to scout for followers all the time to try and spread the word about what's hot on our pages and it can be long, drawn out and sometimes disappointing if you can't keep up without being buried in seconds flat (those that are familiar with the Etsy promotions forum will know what I mean). There has to be easier ways to do this that benefits larger groups of people in a less time consuming and easier way right? YES! Blog hopping! Ooooooh I love it. What a fab way for everyone to spread the word with one simple code! Awesome! I'm obviously a blog hop virgin as it's a new concept to me, but it is just genius! I've joined SOOOO many already and linked to them in my sidebar for others to check out. I plan to create a page for them as there are quite a few that I've joined and I know there will be more since I've been doing them by the day... and I need to go all the way back to Thursday again! But anyway my first is already running and you can navigate to it in my top navigation above this post! it'll run out tonight so get in whilst you can! and if you miss out a new one will start again Thursday!

Anyway I've been following blogs like a trouper, and I have to say blog hopping really does work. If you are looking for followers, I recommend giving them a go and where you can make sure you leave comments!

And Saturdays... I couldn't resist the idea of being able to host giveaways. Specifically handmade ones! At the moment I have one running which is for an item of my own making which you can see in the post below (or check out the top navigation!), but I hope to extend this out to others if they wish for me to host their giveaways in the future. I am still working out the technicalities of that idea but for now I will host my own. They run for 2 weeks at a time and you can have multiple entires for multiple chances of winning! Make sure you take part if you havent already :)

And in my land of creation, I am forever making new hats, conjuring up new designs and taking lots of new photographs for moonangelnay photography and babamoon. I have had a few orders this week so i've been pretty busy fulfilling those and trying to keep up the pace with my ever so busy family life too. My daughter is 4 months old now and is now in that "I see it, I'm going to grab it... and quite possibly try and devour it once I have given it a good gum munch" stage... She tried to take the fork out of my mouth as I ate lunch today which surprised the life outta me. Came right out of the blue! AND she has decided that she wants to roll over too so we're at a whole new level of 'eeeeek a baby' now lol!!! She's going to have to grin and bare it now when she sits by me rather than on me as i eat. Bless her she's VERY attatched to me and can be a bit grisly when she's away from me for more than a few minutes. But she's a good girl and fast learner, she'll eventually know that mommy will always come back lol! Awww she's growing up so fast and has finally got to the stage of experiementation! I can't wait to see her progress from here. My son is in love with her still and avidly insists that he knows more than I do when it comes to deciphering her grumbles, yet quickly gives up when the responsibility he puts on himself becomes too irksome lol! Bless him, he's trying ever so hard to be a grown up. He even put his daddy on the naughty step for spilling brown sauce on his own leg earlier. Hilarious! Kids are wonderful! Anyway I'd better scoot off... have a great remainder of the weekend!

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com...

Bamboo Tile Collage Sheet, Urban Nature Abstract Photography

Sky High Original Photo Scrabble Glass Tile Pendant

Baby 6 to 12m Soft Rainbow Crochet Flopsy Bunny Hat

Baby 3-6m Crochet Black Spooky Pointy Little Witch Hat

Newborn Baby 3 to 6m Red Green and White Pointy Pom Pom Bobble Elf Hat

That's it for now. Have a great weekend all!


moonangelnay x

BESTeam! We Need YOU!

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly musings, articles and mostly babble...


We Need YOU! The great thing about the handmade community is the way everyone helps eachother out in some shape or form. Be it a feature, a tweet, a hosted giveaway, or even some advice, we all come together as one big crafting family to pay it forward for eachother and for other causes. I LOVE being a part of this which is why I wanted to dedicate todays post to a team I am part of and most active in. That is the BESTeam on Etsy. BESTeam as you can see from the image (if you have images enabled!) stands for Boosting Etsy Shops Team, and so far we have literally being boosting eachothers web presence and shop/blog traffic on a weekly basis by writing up features of each members work. I myself as a lot of you know had dedicated an entire day each week to do this for my team which is on Tuesdays. I feature a LOT of people on my blog weekly so it has been nice to have a day especially for one of the teams I'm part of.
I do enjoy being a part of this team so today I wanted to put out a call for any Etsy sellers with blogs that may wish to be a part of the team. The criteria really is only the passion and drive to help and and feature other handmade artists (as they will for you too), and the way we rotate means that everyone get's to feature someone different and someone ALWAYS 99% of the time should feature you regularly! I can't think of a better way to build up your backlinks and gain more web presence. I think the team is transitioning into a new development which will allow members to post monthly instead of weekly, which is perfect for those that are a little time strapped. But it's something that I am only just aware of so we'll have to see how it pans out!

If you are interested in joining please stop by our Yahoo Group or send a convo for more info and I'll be happy to help out!

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com...

Sunflower Dreams 5x7 Inch Fine Art Photo

Scrabble Tile Collage Sheet No.3

Mandala Chakra No.3 5x7 Inch Fine Art Photo

Baby 6-12m Soft White Crochet Angel Wings

Baby 3-6m Kiki Red Big Bow Headband Inspired by Studio Ghibli Kiki's Delivery Service

Newborn Baby 0-3m Soft Panny Panda Hat Inspired by Panda Kopanda

That's it for now. Have a great weekend all!


moonangelnay x