Last week was a bit of a mixed bag, some days were slow, some days were pretty insane.  Monday, I spent the day cleaning and tidying our spare room.  Our spare room is the home of our ‘gift cupboard’, and the gifts had spread out over the floor, the spare bed and all over.  This was the day I took a note of what I had for everyone, who I needed to buy for and I tidied it all up.  I now have a list!

For those of you who don’t know, I tend to start my Christmas shopping, the day after Christmas – I tend to be pretty organised!

Wednesday (9th), I picked up one of the SSA Newcomers, Natalie (from Scotland) and took her to Magz’s house for lunch with Frances and Crystal.  It was a lovely lunch, we love greeting new ladies in to our group and when you add food, it can’t get much better! High-light of my lunch, was, by far, the delicious pork pies that Frances made.  Talk about a taste of home!!! *drools*

Thursday, Col and I had planned on going to Ikea before we picked up newbie Natalie and her hubby Jamie.  However, the traffic was chaotically bad and meant we couldn’t get anywhere NEAR Ikea.

We ended up doing a weird and wonderful work around back to back accidents, and decided to quit trying to battle our way to Ikea and just let the traffic disperse while we had a delicious dinner in Lupe Tortillas.  Can you believe, that there is at least a $10 difference between our Lupe Tortillas in Sugar Land, and the Lupe Tortillas that we ate in on Kirby? What the hell?! I wasn’t happy!

It went from bad traffic to worse hockey, Natalie and Jamie decided to come with us to the Aeros game.  However, we were so abysmally bad, I’ve never seen the Aeros play that bad before.  It was terrible! In spite of the awful hockey and the even worse score, Natalie and Jamie have said they enjoyed it and would like to go back – score!

Friday morning didn’t go to plan, again, however, I got dropped off at Magz’s house, we picked up Natalie and we headed up to the Nutcracker Market, for my 2nd time in two years.

I can’t begin to tell you just how fantastically festive this place is! It’s a huuuuuuuuuuge hall, filled end to end with stalls of sellers, some, most in fact, related to Christmas or the holidays.  Gifts, foods, decorations, wrapping paper, they have it all!

Last year, I fell in love with ‘The Write Plate’ while I was at the market with Col’s parents.  I talked myself out of buying one, I couldn’t justify the expense, didn’t think I’d use it, I thought the prices might have been comparable online to those at the market.  I kept going back to the stall, but I kept walking past it.

It’s haunted me all year, all freakin’ year I’ve thought about this plate and how wonderful it was and I was determined this year to pick one up, come hell or high water!

And so I did!!

I got their basic square plate at $35.95

They had a show special on, buy 5 get one free, so Magz and I (since I’d sold her on the concept as well) decided to do the buy 5 and get 1 free deal and split it between us, you can see my ribbons in the picture above!

As for my magnets, I picked up the Glory magnet, the gingerbread house magnet and the cute little make a wish magnet.

I also (yes, I was here for a while at this stall picking out my products, I could have bought them all!) went home with their ‘Days to Christmas‘ reusable sticker for my plate.

I got it home and started to assemble it only to find out that there was a hairline crack in the bottom left hand corner of the plate.  It’s tiny and you can only see it when you’re absolutely looking for it, but it’s there, (and hubby correctly told me that I paid enough for it to be perfect) so I wrote off to their customer care people (after a little difficulty finding an email address to contact) and their customer service is fantastic!

I just have to take a picture of the crack (which I still need to do!) and send it to them and they’ll help me sort out my issue!

Here’s how it currently looks,

The bow is strategically hiding the crack, though it’s proving hard to photograph, so you’d probably not see that anyway!

I love it, it was worth every penny and I’m looking forward to being creative with it and hanging it on the wall!

Another stand I love to visit at the Nutcracker market, is that of a friend of mine, Ness.  She’s with EnviroTrend USA and they sell (among other things) these adorable SAKitToMe range of reusable bags.

“SAKitToMe is a durable,compact polyester bag perfect for shopping. With its sewn in pocket, metal key ring and double sided printing, SAKitToMe is the wisest choice in compact bags. The SAKitToMe bags come in a range of colorful patterns suitable for any eco-wise individual.”

These bags are GREAT! I started my collection with this ‘owl’ bag (which I also bought for a friend too!)

It’s been with me to Malaysia, Singapore and various places over the US and I love it!

One I’ve been eyeing since last year’s Nutcracker market, is this Dandelion Bamboo,

…once again, when I saw it this year at the Nutcracker market, it jumped out and spoke to me (plus, as it’s made of Bamboo it’s so stinkin’ soft!) so I had to take it home with me – I’ve already used it twice since and it hangs proudly on my handbag!

I think this new Orchid bag, or Cherry blossom

And in case you missed it, these make EXCELLENT stocking stuffers! Check them out here, at www.envirotrendusa.com and tell Ness that Las sent ya 😉

Perhaps I’ll try and team up with Ness for my next giveaway – now there’s a great idea!