Liquorice-allosaurs

allosaurs @ 2007-09-28T18:07:00

2007-09-28T17:12:52Z

It's Sale Time!

Liquorice-Allosaurs Handmade Delights

allosaurs @ 2007-05-11T15:53:00

2007-05-11T14:57:22Z

This and much more

At Liquorice-Allosaurs Handmade Delights

Baby Birds!

2007-04-18T16:06:15Z

About the end of March something strange caught my eye when I was eating my breakfast - something was moving about in our kitchen window box, two stories off the ground. What was it? A blackbird, making a nest!

The female bird sat tight on her eggs for about 10 days, just inches from where I work. I diddn't dare take any pictures of her then in case it disturbed her into abandoning her nest. She laid 4 beautiful blue eggs.

This is a lousy pic but I had to snatch it quickly when ms blackbird went for a refreshment break :) 3 of the eggs have hatched into tiny naked chicks, and one blue egg is left. Sadly that one diddn't hatch.

Here's another one of the three chicks aged about 12 days, just a few days before they left the nest

Check out little fuzzy butt here squashing all his siblings, no wonder they were in a hurry to leave!

Currently they are living in the dense bushes at the bottom of our garden. I was amazed to learn that when blackbird chicks leave the nest the cannot fly, and are still completely dependant on their parents for another week! I doubt I'll get any more pictures now as they are not so easy to get close to now, but that was one incredible nature lesson while it lasted :)

It's spring!!!

2007-03-26T19:08:01Z

Leaning against a farmyard gate during a weekend stroll, we were admiring a happy pig in his mud wallow when the farmer appeared from an outbuilding and asked if we would like to see the lambs. Thinking he would just lead us to another field where his sheep would be grazing, we diddn't know what a treat we had in store!

He led us into the lambing pen where expectant mothers, new mums and their newborns are kept. Laying with their mothers on a thick bed of straw we saw lambs only a few hours old.

This lady had twins the previous night...

This little one was only born a couple of hours before I took the picture. Shall we take a closer look?

But most precious of all was this little one. What we diddn't know when the farmer appeared and invited us in was that a little lamb had just been born. The mother had a difficult time, and the farmer had to help her out. He'd just stepped out of the lambing pen when he saw us and invited us in. I think he was very releived and proud and wanted to show off mother and baby. Without his help they might not have made it.

It was very moving to see this tiny scrap of life being gently nuzzled by its mother. It was six minutes old.

Shop Update

2007-03-26T17:58:02Z

Are your ears happy ears?

Treat them to a present! Liquorice-Allosaurs is having an earring sale!

New Stuff!!!

2007-03-16T16:32:35Z

Go click on the pic to see!!!

Liquorice-Allosaurs.com

allosaurs @ 2007-03-16T12:16:00

2007-03-16T12:17:09Z

Its been a while since I've made a proper entry, so what have I been up to? I've been travveling! Check out my pics from Amsterdam!

Bikes are everywhere, I wish I'd done a whole photo essay on the cheerfullness of a city that travels by bike. People cycle about with big buckets full of kids, furniture, the weekly shopping and each other while chatting on their mobile phones and missing one another by millimetres. I never saw anything even approaching an accident though. If the first thing you can remember is being scooted along on the front of your parents bike, your sense of speed and balance must be phenomenal.

It's hard to get across just how rediculously pretty the whole place is

Almost chocolate box sweet and yet quirky, with quite and edge.

The window of a completely bonkers shop. The window shopping was divine, and as we had spent all our money on the trip itsself, window shopping was all it could be *sigh* However with window shopping this good it's hard to complain. It ranged from kitsch...

...to rather more expensive kitsch...

..to mind bendingly kitsch...

...to the downright terrifying!

I took this in our favorate bar, during the week it's pretty quiet but from Thursday onwards it's packed and super friendly. The landlord is really smiley and has the best handlebar moustashe ever. I was to shy to photograph him, so check out the lager and the wierd lock winding mechanisms you can see out of the window.

...and that was the view from the window. The blurry thing in the foreground is a swan.

Hot chocolate with a neat gin chaser? That'll be Pat's order then... Seriously, if you want to get on in Amsterdam, order gin at the bar. You'll get a big '...but tourists NEVER order gin' smile and a welcome forevermore, the locals are prouder of their gin than anything, and rightly so.

Winter Wonderland!

2007-03-16T10:32:53Z

Today it SNOWED!!!!! Ok, for those of you who live in naturally snowy lands this may not seem like a big deal, but here in London it certainly is. It wasn't just me who bunked off work to go sledging either, seems like the whole of north London turned out to this hill for some fun

Here's the view as we approach the hill to Alexandra Palace, it was snowing really thickly! Lots of schools had to close for the day because teachers couldn't get into work, so there were kids snowballing everywhere

These kids made a snowball so big and heavy that they couldn't move it any more, they are all "whoa, what do we do now?"

Sledging from the top of the hill

Alexandra Palace in the snow

It was gorgeous, I took soooo many pics it was hard to decide which to post. We had a lot of fun sliding down the hill on tea trays, bits of wood and stuff, got absolutely soaking but who cares, we had a blast! Now it's time to be all cozy indoors. I love being snuggly indoors when its so cold outside :)

allosaurs @ 2006-12-16T15:54:00

2006-12-16T16:00:51Z

Aaaaahrgh! Well its been an interesting month chez Liquorice-Allosaurs, the shops been pretty busy which means of course that I have been too; then a bug appeared onsite that meant some people were having problems with logging in, but that's been sorted now and after several days frantic debugging the site seems smoother than ever. I'm behind on just about everything though, and the last couple of days have been frantic. But today I relax, cook a yummy dinner and watch craptastic films on tv with my honey while eating Tofutti icecream straight from the carton. Bliss!

I LOVE getting mail!

2006-11-23T16:23:30Z

Today I got a FABULOUS surprise, a big fat ass parcel waiting for me! What was in there? A whole bunch of goodness from my lovely friend Lindsay, aka kid_pirate! I know its cruel of me to just drop that one on you without sharing pics of what she sent me, but I just couldn't contain my excitement and had to tell before I got any pictures ready. I just wanted to say THANK YOU Lindsay, and expect to see pics up here pretty soon of the fabulous booty!

allosaurs @ 2006-11-21T19:53:00

2006-11-21T19:53:58Z

Liquorice Allosaurs 24 hour Flash Sale!!!
Wed 22nd November

On Wed 22nd November, everything instore will be 10% off, so hurry on over and snap up some pre Christmas bargains!!! Remember, it only lasts for 24 hours, so don't miss out!

Princess furball

2006-11-17T19:10:25Z

The following bundle of goodness is the lovely lady Dementia, the best cat in the world (sorry to boast, but I really love this girl

I diddn't name her; she earned her name by turning up at my boyfriends place one day, a starving scrap of fur. She was so afraid and crazy that my boyfriend's housmate at the time gave her that nickname, and of course it stuck. It was a month before she could be persuaded to come indoors and even longer before she could be touched. Once she realised how nice being stroked was, she was soon hooked and you couldn't find a more absurdly affectionate critter :)

She's an ooooold lady now, completely blind and prone to health problems. We've been having a lot of worry as she is such a determinedly outdoor cat, so her blindness plus winter being here was not good. However in the last couple of weeks she's become an indoor cat voluntarily - what a releif. She goes to the vets every six weeks for checkups and today she was pronounced fit as can be. She sometimes gets very grouchy if her meds are not properly balanced - this was something we only found out recently so her continuing eccentric ways were in fact due to her thyroid problem! She's such a sweet old lady, I hope she'll be curled up warm and cozy on this chair for many more years to come.

Busy busy busy!

2006-10-23T18:46:35Z

Well apologies for neglecting this journal but its been a busy couple of weeks! The shop had quite a slow start but things are starting to get moving now, and best of all I have a lot of ideas for new stuff! I love the cute but I also do the creepy cute - in fact thats my first love, so there will be some spooky stuff appearing soon - some already has for Halloween! But I kinda missed halloween because I've been working on something special - a collaboration with a very talented friend who is so creative. I'm going to be all superstitious and not tell you what it is until we've gone into production, but its something a little different that I've been wanting to do for a LONG TIME! For me to miss out on making Halloween jewellery, you have to know that this is something special!

I've also been approached by a very cool shop in Manchester that wants to stock my stuff - but I've never done consignments before so this is all new to me - I have no idea at all how to negotiate prices - ideas anyone?

Ack, I wanted to include a pic of my new flower stud earrings in this post but resizing the pics is going to have to wait till tomorrow. I'm going to cook dinner for my sweetie and read a nice book. Hope everyones well, I'm going to check out my friends page now :)

Shop is Live!!!

2006-10-06T14:46:16Z

Ahhhh! After 6 months of solid hard work, the Liquorice-allosaurs online shop has gone live! I still haven't quite got all my wares uploaded to it, but what I do have is a start. Go on, click the apple to check it out :)

So why have I been so quiet on here? Well, apart from working so hard on getting the site ready and making stuff to put in it, I also got sick with bronchitis - but I'm all better now, HURRAH! Still, I'm off to my boyfriends folks place in the country for the weekend for a long awaited break and then its back to work - and hopefully more cute things to show you sneek peeks of here. I have some Halloween goodies planned!

allosaurs @ 2006-08-25T11:04:00

2006-08-25T10:31:30Z

Hello darlings!

Its about time I had me a proper craft journal, so here it is at last! This is where you will get sneak peeks of what I'm making, what inspires me and any stuff to do with my online shop, liquorice-allosaurs

I've been busy baking this week, making cuties to go in my shop, which I hope to get online mid September.

I'm thinking of calling these necklaces "lovebite disaster'" - what do you think?

It's super busy here right now, but soon I'll be able to chill...

'cause I'm going away this Monday (28th) for an island adventure! I'll be going here...

...which is not somewhere in the Carribean as you may imagine, it's the Scilley Isles, just off the coast of Cornwall. After that I'm going to Bestival, so I'm away for almost two weeks - hurrah!

Anyhow in the meantime feel free to friend me; I'm sure I'll add you back, and there'll be lots to see in here very soon

♥

Pat xxx