Is it possible that Christmas is only 3 weeks away (well less than that as this post is late!). I did promise this would be late as the new shop opened today... WHAT FUN! We have worked hard and long hours and haven't had a night off in over a month (we moved ourselves into a house and then set about moving the shop!).

The shop moving work was done on Thursday (thanks to the great team of helpers). On Friday we put the stock on the shelves (thanks again to an amazing team of helpers!). Saturday was spent finishing off the stock and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning... (and you guessed it - thanks to the incredible team of helpers!). Some of the ladies came back THREE days in a row! What a blessing. The Sunday was a slow day. Graham and I were tired from a series of late, late nights. So we just pottered around while Ella did the final cleaning. If we had moved our limbs more quickly we may have actually finished before dinner. But we didn't and ended up staying there til 11pm! We pulled down the window display late at night. It was a great moment!! Here's the sneak peak...

I had such fun today showing people around the shop. The reactions from people were so fabulous. We are thrilled and can't wait to show you the photos. Graham set up the camera for 3 days and it took a photo every 3 minutes. He's going to make a time-lapse video and we'll post it during the week!

Anyway, this blog is supposed to be about the Christmas Countdown! We had some great home decoration entries sent to us last week - but we haven't got them up yet on the Gallery (and I am hopping to be in bed before 11pm tonight - that's in 10 minutes!!). I will get onto that tomorrow and will announce the winner of the Prize pack then...

The new theme for that week is CHRISTMAS FAVOURS. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with. You'll agree that the blog posts have been really impressive. I have a section in the foyer of the new shop to display the Design Team projects. What a treat!

So please send us your Christmas Favour pictures by Sunday 6pm, 12th December. You'll go in the draw to win a Kaisercraft Star Wreath. I love them and you'll see one in the shop display window... Please send them to artfullcrafts@gmail.com.

My thanks go to Viv Laursen for her wonderful design for the shop signs and the help with the displays and Christmas Tree. That's my Home Decoration submission this week!! Diana (the Christmas Tree Queen) came with me shopping for the bits and pieces, gave me ideas and then I passed those on the Viv who did the job! So it's a collaborative tree. Sorry the photo isn't a big closer. Tomorrow we'll go and take photos of the indoors - so come back tomorrow and read the next blog post!


Have a great night... and I'm off for an early (ish) night! We enjoyed coming home and cooking (after 2 weeks of takeaways) and we watched Julie and Julia. Just what the doctor ordered! Chat soon
:-) Liz