Everything happens for a reason..

My two nice surprises in my last post turned into three nice surprises as I was lucky enough to win Kathryn's blog giveaway over at Lazy Daisy Glass. I stock some of Kathryn's gorgeous jewellery, and Lazy Bones Fishies, in the Purple Sparkle Shop, so I'm so excited to be getting a Lazy Daisy pendant of my own!

After my very lucky day, the universe seemed to want to balance things out a little bit, and gave me a very tough rest of the week. Honestly, how mean of it!

So, I thought I'd share these very wise words..

Everything happens for a reason.

Nothing happens by chance or by means of good or bad luck.

Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul.

Without these small tests if they be events, illnesses or relationships life would be a smoothly paved, straight flat road to nowhere.

If someone hurts you, betrays you, or breaks your heart, forgive them for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to who you open your heart to.

If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you but because they are teaching you to love and opening your heart and eyes to things you would have never seen or felt without them.

Make everyday count.

Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again.

Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen.

Hold your head up because you have every right to.

Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will believe in your either.

You can make of your life anything you wish.

Create your own life and then go out and live it!

I'll be back soon with some more Purple Sparkle news.. including some brand new fragrant products, which will be up on the website by the end of this week :-)

Two nice surprises..

As I pulled up outside the Purple Sparkle shop this morning I was met with this lovely surprise..



A new shop sign! Or rather a shop sign full stop, as it's the first one I've ever had. I did know it was coming of course, but I didn't realise it was being installed whilst I was away being a soap hermit. I absolutely love it, it's fantastic to see my Purple Sparkle cupcake logo up there looking all shiny and new! I'm thinking of it as a first birthday present to the shop. It's about time really, can you think of many shops you know without signs?!

Secondly, when I opened the door to the shop, I found another surprise in the form of this green piece of card..



I won (joint) third place in the window dressing competition! Maybe my candy floss tree wasn't such a bad idea!



I seem to be incapable of taking a good picture of this window display, but there's another attempt!

As you can probably tell, the next very important job is to get the shop front re-painted. A year ago I tried to pretend it was 'shabby chic', but I don't think I can get away with that for much longer..!

Soap Hermit and Sugar Pie..

I made the mistake in my last blog post in saying that I had completed a huge soap order. The mistake was in the word 'completed'. Did you ever do an exam at school and finish the paper, only to realise at the very last minute that the question pages were two sides, so you had only completed half and it was too late to do anything about it? Well it was that sort of feeling here last Monday evening!

After recovering from a huge wibble about it all, I recruited Mr Purple Sparkle to help with the wrapping (I had to promise payment in Xbox games) and we have just finished another week of being soap hermits!



I did manage to spend some days at the Purple Sparkle shop though, and completed my Halloween window decoration to be entered into the window display competition which is part of the Wincanton Carnival. Sorry for the very poor picture, my camera told me that the battery was exhausted (know the feeling!) so I had to use my phone, but you should be able to make out my inspired idea of a spooky tree. The one with purple candy floss on it. It was only looking back at the picture I realised it looked like candy floss and not spooky cobwebs at all. Ah well! I do love the cute purple spiders and the witches though. And the owls can be made from the craft kit which is available from my website.



I'm looking forward to getting back to the Purple Sparkle shop again tomorrow, where I'm working on some new products for Christmas. And some things for my first craft fair in a long time - the Sugar Pie Craft Event in the Methodist Church Hall in Gillingham on Saturday morning. I'm really looking forward to that, not least because it is being run by Tracy of Sugar Pie Artisan Cupcakes. It's a brand new craft event, which will include real edible cupcakes! Just my cup of tea!



Which brings me onto edibles.. or in my case, inedibles (in a good way) and the winner of last week's Chocolate Week Giveaway! Thank you so much to everyone who commented, blogged and tweeted about the giveaway. I've entered everyone into the random number generator at www.random.org, who chose the winner to be Merry from Merrymade Cards and Crafts. So my raspberry truffle wax melts will be winging their way over to Australia shortly - lucky things!

Hope you all have a lovely week,

Purpley :-)

It's Chocolate Week!

I noticed over on Lazy Daisy's Blog today , that this week is Chocolate Week!

Which is great timing really, as I have spent today making chocolate themed products for a new customer, who happens to own a chocolate shop!

We have some chocolate box wax melts, fragranced with Raspberry Truffle..



And a new chocolate themed Celebration Cake Candle..



I'm also making chocolate scented body scrubs, bath melts and whipped shea butter!

Now I know a few posts back I said that this month is the Purple Sparkle Shop's first birthday and that I was planning something special for the month of October, but unfortunately so far that something special hasn't quite happened. I've spent most of the past week working on a very large soap order, which meant that the poor Purple Sparkle Shop was closed three out of five days last week, one night I didn't go to bed at all, and I started to look rather like a panda. This afternoon I finally finished the last soap, so now I can get back to civilisation, candles, and catching up with anything I may have missed while I have been a soap hermit!

So, I think it's about time I started on this 'something special for October' promise I made, and I think a good way to start would be a themed giveaway for Chocolate Week!



So to be in with a chance to win one of Purple Sparkle's scrumptious calorie free chocolate boxes all you need to do is leave a comment on this post. To gain an extra entry you can promote my giveaway on your own blog, or tweet a link to my giveaway, or add it to your facebook page if you have one. For three extra entries you can do all three! Don't forget to leave an extra comment for each entry with a link to your blog or your tweet, whichever is relevant. If you don't have a blogspot account, remember to leave your email address in your comment so I can contact you if you are the winner.

Closing date is Monday 19th October at 8pm GMT, when I'll draw a winner from all the entries at random.

Have a great week!

Purpley :-)

Trick or Treat!

When Trick or Treaters used to come to our door, my Mum Bryn always used to respond with 'Treat Please!' and hold out her hand for her treat. Strangely it didn't really work, we didn't get many treats given to us that way...!

There are plenty of treats for you over at Purple Sparkle Crafts this October though, our Halloween Range is finally online!



I hope you enjoy them. The pumpkin pie fragrance is my absolute favourite, it smells delicious!



I hope you're all enjoying your weekend. I'm working on a super big soap order and also working on some new handmade jewellery both for the Purple Sparkle Shop and for some upcoming craft fairs! It's been too long since I have attended a craft fair so I'm really looking forward to these.

I've also started reading My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I thought I'd get straight back into something different after finishing the fantastic 'Pillars of The Earth'. Mr Purple Sparkle made the mistake of waiting and hasn't read anything since he finished it. So I had to do the kindly thing and order the sequel.. :-)

Purpley :-)

Pretty in pink and sleepless nights..

I went to my first and last car boot sale of the year last weekend and was very excited to find a stall with a big box of vintage greetings cards, they were so pretty! They were quite expensive so I limited my selection to just a few, but my favourite was this lovely lady..



I thought rather than confine her to a shoebox for the rest of her days, I'd pop her out on display, so I decorated a canvas with lots of lace and gave her a sprinkling of glimmer mist for papercrafts. Quite extravagant, but she looks like she approves!

Feeling inspired by all that lovely lace, I thought I'd attempt to decorate a shadowbox. I love shadowboxes, and will keep them for absolutely ages before I decide what to do with them. I purchased some cupcake picks from Etsy which when they arrived I thought were too cute to be used even for cupcakes.. so I have given them a new home, with, of course, lots of lace!



In other news, I'm feeling a little bit sleepy this week. As a self employed crafter, I find that I am doing something 'work' related most of my waking hours. Anytime after around midnight I let myself stop, and in this time I usually sleep. That's until I discovered this..



Every time I have tried to describe this book to someone I haven't done too good a job. So all I will say is, just read it. It is absolutely fantastic. It made me laugh and it made me cry. It's just such a wonderful story. I'm at a bit of a loss now I've finished reading it. After I've caught up on the lost sleep I will miss being able to get lost in my book. Let me know if you have any recommendations!

Purpley :-)x

I heart spray paint..

Looking around the Purple Sparkle Shop in Wincanton recently, I had the feeling that I wanted to take it all out and start again. It tells me that it's in desperate need of new fittings and furniture and a complete rearrange. It may have something to do with this picture I received of the beautiful Love and Roses Boutique in Aberdeen, who are one of my stockists..



Isn't it lovely? All that gorgeous white furniture, and I love the way that my products have been displayed. I received this picture by email and looked up at my own wax melt display and thought something had to be done!

In the absence of funds to refit the entire shop as I would wish, I brought home the worst offending article in the shop and plonked it onto the patio for a makeover..



Isn't it just stunning?! Hmm.. I'm afraid to say that this is what I was using to display the wax melts in my shop. So I brought out the spray paint..


A bit better..


Maybe I'll turn it pink..


I know, pink and blue together!... Ok, I think I've ruined the poor shelf now, it looked better in the first picture...


The only thing for it was to paint over the whole thing! And then add some butterflies..


And here it is in the shop window!

Well.. it's a start..!