A Crafty Day Out

Little Bird was off school on Thursday due to industrial action so I decided that we'd head out on a little girly shopping trip to our nearest Hobbycraft store.  Now Little Bird is mad about crafts, so I knew she would just love this outing, as she has never been to a Hobbycraft store.  I have only ever been once before when she was very small and I decided to do a spot of cardmaking.  It didn't last though and I just haven't been back until now.

The particular store we visited has opened up fairly recently and when we've passed we've both been a bit curious, so we decided to take a look.  I was pleasantly surprised once inside at how much choice they had in there.  There were aisles and aisles of all things crafty and Christmassy to mooch around.  I saw lots of lovely things to inspire me, but as I'm half way through Stoptober I had to be very careful not to go too mad.

In the end I did buy a few things.  I bought this make your own cracker kit to make 6 Christmas crackers for £4, which I thought was very reasonable.  It includes snaps, paper hats and jokes and you just put your own gifts in.  Perfect for decorating the dinner table on Christmas Day and will allow me to personalise the gifts for ourselves and our guests.  Pretty too.

I also bought a white ink pad for £2 for stamping some snowflakes on to gift tags and paper.  I just need to find a stamp now as I didn't see one in there, but I'm currently watching one on eBay, so fingers crossed. 

The other two items I bought were both for Little Bird.  One was a pack of polymer clay in a particular colour that she has wanted for a while and the other was this great little book of polymer clay projects which I am going to give her for Christmas to inspire her.  It has some great little projects inside it and it was reduced to £4.99 from £10.99.

She has now become a devoted fan of Hobbycraft and would like vouchers to spend there for her birthday.  I was pretty impressed too, although not by the price of some things i.e. cotton fabric at £12 per metre, nice though it was.  There was a great baking aisle too, with lots of different coloured fondant icing which Little Bird loved.  I think she might be getting into Sugarcraft/Cake decorating next.  We were both interested to see that they run workshops in the holidays for children, which might be worth checking out in the future if one comes up that really appeals to her.

Anyway, having dragged ourselves away, we then popped into Pets at Home next door.  I've not been to one of their stores either for a while, not since we had our guinea pigs 4 or 5 years ago.  We had a bit of a drool over the guinea pigs in there.  We so love those little creatures, but I can't see them lasting 10 minutes with a terrier in the house.  They had some cute Christmas stockings and gifts for pets and I must admit that I did indulge in a squeaky Christmas pudding for the puppy's stocking which only cost £1, but is super cute.  I also got inspiration for another gift for her in Hobbycraft, namely these lovely jars of pet treats, which I am going to make up myself using a small Kilner jar.

Our final stop was the IKEA nearby for lunch and to check out the fabric department.  Lunch out is always a nice treat and very reasonably priced there.  We were both able to have fish and chips, a dessert each and a refillable drink for £10 and that was without the IKEA Family discount, as I'm not a member.  I was very impressed with a new dessert they had on the menu.  A very welcome introduction.  It was a rosehip panna cotta and it was delish.  I would have taken a photo, but didn't have my camera with me.  Little Bird tried another new addition to the dessert menu,  rice pudding in a glass with jam on top.  It was very creamy and quite nice, but not quite sweet enough for our taste.  It did get eaten though.  

It was pretty busy in there with lots of families with children also having a day out whilst the schools were shut.  After a quick mooch around the store, we came home and took the dog for a nice long walk on the marshes together, which was a lovely end to an enjoyable day.



Please note that I have NOT been sponsored by any store in the writing of the above post.  Any opinions offered are my own, that I have decided to share with readers.