Happy New Year!

Happy new year! I hope you have all had a wonderful festive season and are feeling fresh and inspired ready for the new year.

I have had a lovely family break and am now eager to get back to work and start filling my shops with new products. I have all sorts of plans for 'Claire Hurd Design' this year and I look forward to sharing them with you.

I have pictures to show you of my final Christmas stocking commission for 2009. This stocking was extra special to me as I was making it for my gorgeous niece's first Christmas. She is an absolute bookworm and has already discovered a love of Fairies (a girl after my own heart!) so I personalised her stocking and added a pretty Christmas fairy for her. The embroidered 'Christmas 2009' text is on the stocking foot-arch reverse.

Just before Christmas I was lucky enough to win not one, but two blog giveaways. I have been extremely lucky recently with giveaway wins as I really do not enter many, only those where I am a real fan of the products!

My first was a lovely festive package from Monda Loves. I received some beautiful handmade tree decorations, some lovely handmade cards, a little stash of red and white fabrics and buttons and some of my favourite chocolates. Such a lovely surprise - thank you very much Monda!

The second was from Ruby Wren Designs. I received a lovely assortment of Ruby Wren handmade greetings cards including the 3D butterfly one below. I now have lots of lovely eco-friendly cards to send to my friends, great motivation to send more hand-written letters. Thank you Hayley for my lovely prize, I look forward to using them.